Bible Challenge Day 22: Gifts and Callings (Exodus 4-6)

I have generally assumed that God gives us particular gifts and that our callings follow from them. God calls us to do what we are good at doing. Indeed I have assumed that discerning one’s gifts was a good way to discern one’s calling.

But Moses’ experience suggests I have had that backwards. Moses vigorously resists God’s call to lead the Hebrew people out of bondage in Egypt. (That strikes me as wise even if not very faithful. God calls us to do hard things! I think we sometimes too quickly assume that we are willing to do God’s will. Moses rightly recognizes that following God’s call will not be easy.) And one of the reasons Moses gives is that he is “slow of speech and slow of tongue” (4:10 and again at 6:12). Moses does NOT have the gift that would make him a natural spokesperson for God. But God will have none of it: “Who gives speech to mortals? . . . Is it not I, the Lord? Now go” (4:11-12). And Moses became the greatest of all God’s spokespersons in the Old Testament. Gift followed call.

I should have known this. I experienced exactly the same problem as Moses. When I first decided to become a teacher, I worried because I was so uncomfortable speaking in front of groups. The prospect of preaching terrified me even more! And yet I turned out to love teaching and now preaching. For me, as for Moses on a considerably grander scale, God’s call came first and the gifts to answer the call followed. That makes discerning God’s call a little trickier—I will no longer assume it is something that matches our gifts and/or tastes—but all the more important.

Fr. Harvey