Self Limiting

"But coach, I'm not fast enough to play that position; I'm not built like my teammates," was the response I gave my coach after he told me he was changing my position. Compared to other players on my team I did not consider myself fast; I was also shorter and less lean than some of my other tall and fast teammates. I was always self-conscious because I believed my self-identified deficiencies prohibited me from doing certain things in my sport. No one had told me to my face that I wasn't fast or that I didn't have the proper build to play. Those beliefs were conclusions I came to about myself, and because of them, I was limiting myself. 

You might be in the same boat I was in. And if you are, you are not alone. In Exodus, we encounter a titan of our faith when he is insecure and doubtful of his abilities. God appeared to Moses, telling him that he has been chosen to lead God’s people, the Israelites, out of slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land. Moses was shocked because he didn't believe he could be a leader of that magnitude. He let his belief in his deficiencies stand in the way of the mission that God was giving Him.

I let my insecurities challenge my coach's confidence in me to play a new position. God knew Moses could be the leader He had designed Him to be. God responds to Moses, asking him, "Who placed a mouth on humans?" In that moment, He reminded Moses that if He was the one who created things such as the mouth and the ability to speak, then He was the one who would be with him. 

God made each of us with unique talents and weaknesses. Moses was missing that it was God who had told him this plan and that God would be with him through it all. Moses was correct. He did have trouble speaking, but that didn't matter to God because it was not about Moses' deficiencies but God's perfection. Moses didn't need to be perfect; he just had to trust God's plan and know that if God was with him, then God would be his strength even in his weakness.