Available For Liberation Series

not so sure he really wanted to be a volunteer. Even while

the words, “Here I am” were coming out of Moses’ mouth, he

felt self-doubt, he felt uncertainty, and he felt unreadiness.

I

First, look at Moses’ self-doubt. “Who am I?” he said. “Who

am I that I should go to Pharaoh to bring my people out of

Egypt?” Who wouldn’t be anxious, given the assignment

God had in mind? Only the most arrogant of us think we

have what it takes to do everything. But I am prepared to

say that doubting ourselves is actually a very valuable part of

being available for God’s causes. Moses doubted himself;

and that’s a good thing. It made him available to be used of

God, not for himself, but for God’s purposes.

In my lifetime, I have known a few “no problem” people. Do

you know the kind of person I mean? You ask him to do

something, and he answers, “No problem.” Can you teach

my class for me? “No problem”. Can you repair my broken-

down car? “No problem”. Can you leap tall buildings in a

single bound? “No problem”! What’s going on here? What

is this all about?

There is a kind of insecurity that makes us arrogant and

foolish; that doesn’t admit fear; that doesn’t acknowledge

danger. There is a kind of rash insecurity that just cannot

admit that life is demanding. In my experience, the folks who

always pronounce that there is “no problem” doing something

seldom actually get it done. They promise the world, but

they deliver nothing. They are so caught up in their own

insecurity they cannot tell you they are scared, and so they

make fools of themselves trying to look heroic. But you do

not want self-serving hero antics on the front line of a

battlefield; that’s likely to get everybody hurt. You want

people who have a healthy respect for the enemy.

So I applaud Moses when he says to the Lord, “Who am I

that I should go to Pharaoh to bring my people ... out of

Egypt?” I affirm Moses when he says, “Who am I?” It’s good

to doubt ourselves when we’re faced with the task of

liberating people from the things that bind them. That will

push us back on God. Our self-doubt will teach us to

depend on what God has given us, and not to jump out there

and be false heroes.

There are a lot of things that people today need to be

liberated from. They need to be liberated from poverty; they

need to be freed from addictive behavior; they need to be

released from emotional oppression in their families; and of

course, it almost goes without saying, they need to be set

free from the burden of sin. All of these things oppress, and

God is calling somebody – maybe you, maybe me, likely all

of us – God is calling somebody to be available for liberation.

But if you are tempted to jump in with both feet and fix

somebody’s messed-up life, wait a minute. Wait just a

cotton-pickin’ minute. Do you really know what you are

doing? Do you have the skills you need? Probably not. You

need to get in touch with a little healthy self-doubt, and like

Moses, ask, “Who am I that I should ... bring my people out?”

And when you do, you will find the same answer that Moses

found: that God will be with you. God will prepare you. God