Who Am I? The Wrong Question

A man is walking sheep through the wilderness on an ordinary working day when he sees a bush burning without being consumed. He turns aside to look, and it is his turning aside that the text notices. Only when the LORD sees that Moses has gone over to look does the voice come. The call of Moses begins with curiosity, then with sandals off, then with a face hidden in fear. Then the voice says something astonishing for anyone who has read chapters 1 and 2: I have seen the misery of my people, I have heard them, I am concerned, and I have come down.

Moses' reply is the reply of every person who has ever been asked to do something bigger than themselves. Who am I? He means it sincerely. He is a failed rescuer, a fugitive, an eighty-year-old shepherd married into a foreign family. Egypt is the last place he wants to go and the last place anyone would send him.

God's answer does not engage the question. He does not tell Moses that he is in fact qualified, gifted, or the man for the hour. He says, I will be with you. And then he gives a sign that is deliberately in the future: when you have brought the people out, you will worship God on this mountain. In other words, the proof that you were sent will come after you go.

Here is the one idea. When God calls, the relevant identity is not ours but his. Who am I is a real question, but it is not the decisive one, and answering it does not make us ready. What makes us ready is the presence of the one who sends. This is why so many of the Bible's called people are unlikely: the youngest son, the barren woman, the fisherman, the persecutor. Their inadequacy was not an obstacle to the call. It was the setting in which God's presence could be seen.

The turn toward life is to notice where you have been stalled at Who am I. Perhaps it is a conversation you should have, a ministry you have been asked to take on, a reconciliation you know is yours to begin. You are not going to feel qualified. Moses never did. Go anyway, with your sandals off, and expect the confirming sign on the far side of obedience rather than before it.