Get Real November 16 Devotional
November 16, 2024
EXODUS 3:13 | 13 But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”
EXODUS 4:1 | 1Then Moses answered, “But look, they may not believe me or listen to me but say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’”
Moses’ critical intelligence is evident in this passage. Hearing God’s great passion for Hebrew liberation must have thrilled him—after all, his passion for the underdogs had led to his exile and identification with a subject people. Yet he was being asked to lead these slaves to freedom and he instinctively knew there would be obstacles.
One was built into the nature of a divine call itself and how we convey it to others. A numinous and awesome encounter with God is self-authenticating to the one experiencing it, but not to others. Why should they believe Moses? Why should they trust that a real God with real power had real intentions, against all odds, of freeing and claiming them? What if Moses was delusional? A victim of wishful thinking?
Have you ever struggled to convey your own religious experiences?
