The God Who is Adequate

"But Moses said to God, 'Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?' He said, 'But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.'" (Exodus 3:11-12)

Alec Motyer, in The Message Of Exodus, comments on this passage:

Moses' first problem was his sense of personal inadequacy, the 'What? Me?' syndrome. Moses said, 'Who am I?' and the Lord replied, 'But I...'. Notice the Lord's graciousness here in not trying to deny Moses' inadequacy. How differently we react to each other. Somebody comes to us and says, 'I'm not really up to it,' and we immediately and thoughtlessly reply, 'Of course you are!' That is not the way the Lord dealt with Moses--or the way he deals with us. He does not sweep the difficulties we feel aside. Moses said, 'Lord, I'm not adequate', and the Lord said, 'No, but I am!' He accepted Moses' self-estimate and graciously promised his presence as adequate for the inadequate man. He neither said to him, 'Of course you're adequate,' denying Moses' feelings, or did he say to him, 'It doesn't matter.' He accepted Moses' sense of inadequacy as one of the facts of the situation, but then countered it by the adequacy of his own presence...
Furthermore, the Lord's reaction was not to promise to make Moses adequate, somehow to transform him into someone who was up to the task. (Although this is what he did as time went on.) What he did promise was the sufficiency of his own presence. In other words, he called Moses to a position of faith--to go into this work not expecting to be a different man but expecting a sufficient God. He met Moses' inadequacy with the pledge of his own sufficiency, and called Moses to believe the promises and to demonstrate the obedience of faith.

Are you up to the task today? Are you adequate? I'm not! But the God who has called us to today's work IS adequate, and will be sufficient for us as we carry out that work in the obedience of faith--be it mothering our children, loving that unlovable neighbour or sharing the gospel with a friend or family member over Thanksgiving dinner.