Words of Wisdom Wednesday

I'm catching up on my Bible reading, and I wanted to write about two sections that stood out to me.  God's Word is living and active, and the Holy Spirit is able to illuminate what He wants us to see so we learn something new each time we seek Him.  I LOVE that... how personally and powerfully God can speak to our hearts, and how something we've read several times can feel fresh and new!

God:  "So now go.  I am sending you..."
Moses: "Who am I that I should go..."
God:  "I will be with you."
Moses:  "I have never been eloquent... I am slow of speech and tongue."
The Lord:  "Who gave human beings their mouths?  Who makes them deaf or mute?  Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord?  Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."
(Exodus 3:11-12, 4:10-12)

Moses had the natural human perspective, so he heard God say: "I am sending you" rather than "I am sending you."  There is a massive difference.  Moses responds by looking at his own shortcomings, and God simply promises to be with him and to help him where he is weak.  God carefully created us, and He knows our unique weaknesses.  We worry that we are not enough, and indeed we aren't... but God is enough, always.

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Goliath:  "Why do you come out and line up for battle?  Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul?"
David:  "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.  This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands... and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel!"
(1 Samuel 17:8,45)

I had never noticed Goliath calling the Israelites "the servants of Saul" before.  Ouch.  (In this period of history, most of the Israelites had rejected God as their king and asked for a human king so they could be more like the nations around them.  God granted their request, and it wasn't pretty.)  But David was a man who sought after God.  He viewed Israel as the people of God and saw God as their ultimate King.  So he didn't fight in the name of Saul with a goal to prove Saul's power. He came "in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel" to let the whole world know that there is a God in Israel!  I adore David's gumption here - it's one of those sections where you want to cheer for him as he makes that speech!  I also love that he was perfectly clear on the true King he was serving when their nation's leader was a self-serving coward who had made a hot mess of things.  He was confident in our God, and God rewarded his strong faith! ❤