I believe that in every sermon I've ever heard on Moses, if the story of the burning bush was included, the preacher interpreted Moses' response to God as being stubborn foot-dragging. Moses, I was told, brings out every hesitation and "what-if" scenario in the book in order to avoid obeying God; and then when he finally runs out of excuses, he simply asks God to send someone else. These sermons typically pointed out that God refrains from anger the entire time that Moses is playing this game, until he finally digs in his feet and refuses to obey (Exodus 4:13-14). This is meant to show God's patience and slowness of anger as He bears with our foolishness.

Certainly God is patient and slow to anger – and Moses' last comment does appear to be a failure of courage. But I'd like to suggest a very different reading of Exodus 3 and 4. Notice how much Moses gained in his dialog with God.

Moses asks for the Presence of God

Exodus 3:11-12

But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?"

So He said, "I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain."

Moses was aware of his complete inability and powerlessness to do anything about the situation of Israel in Egypt. He had already tried to deliver Israel once, and the vanity of attempting it in his own strength was abundantly revealed to him. God had to send Moses into the wilderness to tend sheep for 40 years – quite a step down from living in Pharaoh's palace and growing up as an Egyptian nobleman! – before he could recognize that his own strength was utterly insufficient for the task that God had called him to.

So Moses asked for God to go with him. God had to do the work, not Moses.

Moses asks for the Knowledge of God

Exodus 3:13-14

Then Moses said to God, "Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they say to me, 'What is His name?' what shall I say to them?"

And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And He said, "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"

This is an incredible request and an incredible answer. Moses has the boldness to ask God for a revelation of Himself in the form of a name which will show His difference from and superiority to the gods of Egypt. God's answer is profound – both as a revelation of the nature of God as the self-existent One – the One from whom and for whom and through whom are all things – but also because this was a brand new revelation:

Exodus 6:3

I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name LORD [YHWH – "I AM WHO I AM"] I was not known to them.

In The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer said "The man who comes to a right belief about God is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems." When Moses asked for God to reveal His name and His identity, he was not stalling for time or looking for a way out. He was asking a profound and utterly relevant question – "God, who are You?" Everything in ministry and calling and life is affected by the answer to that question.

Moses asks for the Power of God

Exodus 4:1-3

Then Moses answered and said, "But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, 'The LORD has not appeared to you.'"

So the LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?"

He said, "A rod."

And He said, "Cast it on the ground." So he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it.

The assumption behind the sermons that I've heard seems to be that Moses should have been willing to go off to Egypt without asking God all of these questions. Moses is lacking faith because he asked for all of these things. But yet, how exactly do people believe in God? Is it a matter of being convinced intellectually that God is real? Would a good argument on Moses' part have convinced the Israelites to believe that God cared about them? Would a good argument (perhaps an appeal to conscience?) have persuaded Pharaoh that keeping Hebrew slaves was immoral and unwise, and that "the right thing to do" was to let them go?

Of course not. And the same is true for the ministry of God throughout history. Paul said precisely the same thing about his ministry to the Corinthians:

I Corinthians 2:1-5

And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Moses asks for the Anointed Word of God

Exodus 4:10-12

Then Moses said to the LORD, "O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue."

So the LORD said to him, "Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD? Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say."

These sermons (and others, perhaps in the vein of "God can use anyone – just look at Moses!"), often interpret verse 10 as Moses saying that he had a stuttering problem. Stuart Greaves from IHOP gave me the following insight on this verse: Moses had been trained as an Egyptian nobleman. He had had the best schooling in Egypt. He didn't have a stuttering problem – he had a God problem. He had encountered a Reality for which human language was utterly insufficient. His reaction was the same as that which most of the prophets had when they encountered God – Isaiah ("I am a man of unclean lips!"), Jeremiah ("Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth."), Job ("Behold I am vile… Once I have spoken, but I will not answer.")

What Moses needed was not natural speaking ability, but the ability to communicate incommunicable truths about the transcendent God. He needed a word that was not his own, but the very word of God spoken with power, that would have the effect of breaking down the strongholds of darkness. He needed words with power in them. And again, this is consistent with the experience of the New Testament church:

Acts 4:29-30

"Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus."

Note also that God's response to Moses' issue about speech was not to send Aaron with him – that was a response to Moses' final statement, in which it seems that his courage really did fail him. God's answer about speech was to promise him that He would be with his mouth and give him the words to say. In other words, He would give him the word of God anointed with power.

My conclusion with regard to this interaction between Moses and God is that Moses was a broken man. God had broken him down, shattered his pride and his self-reliance, and emptied him of any hope of accomplishing his calling by relying on human strength. And so he had obtained poverty of spirit – that precious quality of the inner being which is the pre-requisite for everything in the Kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3). He was a fit vessel for the glory of God to work through him. And in his condition of poverty of spirit, he saw that it was absolutely critical that he ask God for what he needed.

So why do so many of these sermons preach about Moses as being stubborn and unbelieving because he asked God for revelation and power before he acted? I'm afraid it's because the American model of ministry doesn't ask for anything before it acts. Our definition of faithfulness is to try hard, think carefully, strategize well, and the ultimate goal is being productive for the kingdom of God. We fit prayer in there, but for some reason the prayer meetings are always sparsely attended. There are lots of reasons for that (Mike Bickle's series "Experiencing Easy Prayer" has a great discussion of that), but I think one of the reasons why we don't really pray much is because we don't honestly think we need it. It doesn't "work" for us – prayer is somehow the opposite of the "work" of the ministry.

If we had the heart of Moses, prayer would become absolutely central to everything we do. In comparison to who God actually is, we have an infinitesimal revelation of what He is like. In comparison to what God is calling His church to do and to be, we have no power to make anything significant happen. We need to stop making fun of Moses and start imitating him!