Do You Feel Inadequate to Lead?

from Pat Morley

Volume 218
February 19, 2007

Moses grew up in a privileged environment. He was an educated man “powerful in speech and action” (Acts 7:22).

Moses had a vision that he was going to be the deliverer of his people. When he turned 40, he went to visit his people where he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. Moses killed the Egyptian, thinking his people would recognize that he had come to save them.

But the next day, he saw one of his own fighting with another of his own. When he tried to break it up, the aggressor said, “What are you going to do? Kill me like the Egyptian you killed yesterday?” The Pharaoh found out, and Moses was forced to flee for his life into the Midianite wilderness where he lived in failure and isolation.

After 40 years had passed, God appeared to Moses in a bush that appeared to be on fire. God said, “I’ve heard the groans of my people. I am sending you to deliver them from their bondage.”

Moses was confused, afraid and, frankly, dispirited after 40 years of living in failure and isolation. But eventually he did answer God’s call to leadership and the rest, as they say, is history. He led the exodus of the Hebrew nation throughout 40 years in the same wilderness where he had already spent 40 years!

Ironically, when Moses thought he was adequate to lead his people, God had found him inadequate. There was too much Moses in Moses.

God sent Moses into the wilderness to produce the kind of character that would be needed to actually lead. That’s because God is more interested in the success of our character than the success of our circumstances.

God also used those 40 years to equip Moses with the practical knowledge of the environment he would need to lead the people. Often what we view as abandonment is equipping.

It is interesting. When Moses found himself adequate to lead, God found him inadequate. But when Moses found himself inadequate to lead, God found him adequate.

So do you feel inadequate to lead? Here’s the bottom line: God can use an inadequate man who knows that he is inadequate.

For the glory of Christ and no other reason,

Pat Morley, Ph.D.