This is not the blog I intended to post this week, but after our Zoom call on Thursday with Richard Blackaby, co-author of Experiencing God, my thoughts changed. Richard encouraged us to see where God is already working and join Him there. With that insight in mind, I felt compelled to write a new blog and share what the Lord has recently shown me.

For years I thought that when God told Moses He wanted to send him back to Egypt, the fear he exhibited was about going before Pharaoh to seek the release of God’s people. But as I have continued my study of Moses and have camped out in the third and fourth chapters of Exodus, I’ve come to realize it wasn’t Pharaoh who gave Moses such fright. It was the Sons of Israel, the elders. He desperately wanted their approval and was afraid of their opinions. “What if they ask me Your name?” “What if they won’t believe me?” “What if they won’t listen to what I say?” He knew he had encountered God, but what if they didn’t believe it? He had such fear of failing. Fear was a primary cause of his struggle with God. Or so I thought.

Increasingly, I began to wonder, “What caused Moses to change from a timid shepherd to a confident leader?” “When did this change occur?” “How did he move from someone who was ignored by the Israelites to one being greatly esteemed?”

It always amazes me when we have questions on our heart, how God will often use others to convey the answers. Two separate conversations I had this week confirmed this truth. God was moving in our midst, weaving several thoughts together.

In talking with a friend, she told me about a book she’s been reading, The Relational Soul, by Richard Plass and James Cofield, and what she’s learned about trust. Basically, if parents are not emotionally available, children learn to not trust others. If parents are not emotionally reliable, children learn to not trust themselves, and it leaves them striving for the approval of others and worrying too much about other people’s opinions. And if parents are not emotionally available or reliable, children are considered “scattered,” as they trust neither themselves or others.

Later I spoke with our daughter who is a therapist and shared how the above information is reflected in my life as I too have struggled with “approval idolatry,” as Pastor Tim Keller calls it. Then I told her about trying to determine the significance of Moses interceding for Pharaoh in Exodus 8. It was after that incident that his life began to change, and I couldn’t figure out why. My daughter stated the answer so matter-of-factly that I almost missed it. “Mom, that’s because Moses realized he could begin to trust God when he prayed and God answered.”

In that moment, I realized what was really at the root of Moses’ struggle. It wasn’t fear; it was a level deeper than fear. It was a lack of trust, both in himself and in others. Moses was so scattered. He didn’t trust himself, which left him desiring the approval of others and being defined by their opinions. And he didn’t trust God, His promise to be with him and His ability to speak through him. Moses’ lack of trust affected his identity, who he was and how he saw himself.

As Moses entreated Pharaoh, he exercised his trust in God, and his trust muscle began to grow. He cried out to the Lord with a need and the Lord responded. Later again in chapters 8, 9 and 10, Moses made supplications and the Lord moved according to his requests, and his trust continued to expand. Isn’t that the same way our trust muscle begins to take shape as well? We pray, asking the Lord for a need, and as we see Him answer, our trust begins to build.

I remember the first time I started to use my trust muscle. I was only five years old and the doll I had just received for Christmas suddenly stopped walking. Instead of taking her to my parents, maybe because we were poor and batteries couldn’t be easily replaced, I took her to God. I remember getting out my rosary (we were Catholic at the time) and saying my Hail Marys as I cried out to the Lord. After praying for what seemed like hours, but was probably only minutes, I stood my doll on the floor, flipped the switch and she walked. My trust in God as a provider was born.

In the Amplified version of John 6:29, Jesus says that the work God asks of us is to “believe in the One Whom He has sent.” Believe, in the Greek, translates to trust, have faith in. As my dad always said, “Belief is an action verb.” Action is how most of the muscles in our body grow, and so it is the same with our trust muscle. The more action Moses took, the more his trust in God grew, both in His availability and reliability. Soon we see Moses living as the faith-filled leader he was meant to be.

Seeing the change that happened in Moses’ life, as he went from hiding in the desert in fear to becoming a mighty leader in the wilderness, is more than inspiring. And it’s all because he started trusting God. It makes me wonder, how deeply do I really trust and leads me to pray, “Lord, help me to trust you completely, just like Moses.”

I don’t know why the Lord gave me this understanding for this week, but I have to believe it’s for “such a time as this.” May it inspire you to reflect on the strength of your own trust muscle.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5).

Many blessings,
Katie