Moses said to the LORD, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”

The LORD said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say” (Ex 4: 10 – 12).

I sometimes wish that my mind could be quicker than it is. To be able to give a witty response to every situation and make the world laugh around me. To say just the right thing in the moment.

But Moses isn’t complaining about a shortage of comedic skills, or even a lack of wise rhetoric. His problem may have been more basic.

Some have suggested he had a speech impediment, making it difficult for him to express himself with confidence. Perhaps he didn’t feel he knew the language of the Egyptian royal court well enough to be understood. Or he might have been prone to panic attacks with the thought of standing up in front of others and making a speech.

Whatever the reason, Moses considered himself “slow of speech and tongue” therefore believed God had made a huge mistake in choosing him to be His spokesperson.

Towards the end of Jesus’ life, there is a hint that He guessed some of His disciples might struggle with public speaking, or even just articulating their faith to others when they needed to. “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say” (Luke 12: 11 – 12).

In both of our passages today, the Lord promises to teach the person what they need to say.

I have found in my own life that speaking well does not come naturally to me. In my early years as a high school teacher, I did not have the natural confidence to address uninterested teenagers. And years later, serving in pastoral ministry, I will still agonise over the right words to share with a brother or a sister in a sensitive conversation.

But one thing I can say is that the Lord does help. He does give wisdom when you ask for it, even if you have to pray about it for a while, chew it over or seek advice. Over time, he has graciously allowed me to learn boldness, particularly when I know He has given me something to say.

And he can do the same for you.

One of the best preachers I have ever known, would often struggle with a stutter when he spoke. I think God helped him more than anyone knew, but He kept my friend reliant on Him at the same time.

The Lord will help us and teach us what to say, but never to the point where we become proud of our wisdom or oratory skills. If we can get that balance right, what an amazing thought it is that we might be a spokesperson for God himself.

“Your ways, God, are holy.

What god is as great as our God?

You are the God who performs miracles;

you display your power among the peoples.

With your mighty arm you redeemed your people,

the descendants of Jacob and Joseph” (Ps 77: 13 – 15).

This is a really good question to ask: What god is as great as our God?

Gods (with a small ‘g’) in the Bible were, of course, not gods at all. They were man-conceived and man-made. The writings of the Old Testament often refer to them as idols, statues of earthly creatures or representations of how ancient peoples imagined their deities would appear if they could see them. Made of wood, stone, or metal, some were small and portable, kept in tents or family dwellings; others were large, towering over worshippers in their temples.

Isaiah 40 describes the stupidity of creating idols, when they are compared to the living God.

“With whom, then, will you compare God?

To what image will you liken him?

As for an idol, a metalworker casts it,

and a goldsmith overlays it with gold

and fashions silver chains for it.

A person too poor to present such an offering

selects wood that will not rot;

they look for a skilled worker

to set up an idol that will not topple.

Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood since the earth was founded?

He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth (Is 40: 18 – 22)

Idols can topple over. Our God sits enthroned above the circle of the earth.

Why pray to something that humans have created, something that needs help standing up, when the One ruling the heavens and seated on the throne invites us to pray to Him? The One who performs miracles; the One who displays infinite power; the One who redeems us with His mighty arm. He invites us to worship and pray to Him.

Our modern-day idols are just as worthless. We might not bow the knee to a wooden statuette, but how important to us is our social media status? Or the praise of those around me. Do you care about those things more than you care about who you are in God? If you are not sure, compare your average daily screen time with the time you spent reading the Bible this morning, Who do you draw your value from? You contemporaries or your heavenly Father? Do you worship the desire to be liked by others, or do you worship the One who created you, formed you and loves you?

Just like the ancient statues of stone or gold, our present-day idols only hold power if we give it to them. If we lean on them for favour, love, or fortune, we will surely only discover empty and lifeless promises.

But worship the Living God and bow the knee to Him and a whole universe of possibilities open up. Because… what god can possibly be as great as our God?

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,

and he will make your paths straight” (Prov 3:5-6).

Sometimes when I am finding it hard to find a place of peace and trust, it is because I have started to imagine all sorts of possible scenarios that might play out. I see in my minds eye all the worst things that can happen. All the unpleasant conversations that might take place.

In this 3-part devotion series, we have examined what it might mean to trust in the Lord with all your heart. We have suggested that a conscious focus on the attributes of God that particularly speak to the human heart can help us as we navigate life’s challenges. For example, if we remind ourselves that God is kind and God is faithful, we might more easily find the peace that we need because we know He will be faithful and kind towards us.

And if we avoid the temptation to link our faith with what we think we know about a person or what we might believe about a situation, we can instead rest in the truth that God sees and understands all things, and so we can trust Him.

The third line of this proverb simply tells us to submit to Him. In all our ways. This sounds to me like a reminder to declare that He is Lord. The Scriptures constantly tell us that the Lord is on His throne and that Jesus reigns at the right hand of the Father. He is sovereign, no-one is higher than Him. But sometimes we need to consciously submit all of our decisions, all of our problems, all of our comings and goings to His Lordship.

Regardless of how we may want a situation to play out, we must come to a place where we can say, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. Lord, you are a kind and good God and your have your perfect will. You have greater knowledge than me. While I sometimes base decisions on my assumptions, you see the actual truth. So, I submit my ways to you.

With these instructions in place that Lord promises He will make our paths straight. What does this mean? As we said in the first devotion in this series, a straight path implies that we won’t be zigzagging all over the shop trying to find peace or struggling to make sense of a situation.

A straight path will have no turns trying to distract us from our destination – a life of fruitfulness and purpose under the guiding hand of God.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,

and he will make your paths straight” (Prov 3:5-6).

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,

and he will make your paths straight” (Prov 3:5-6).

In the first 4-minute devotion in this series, we said that our trust in the Lord during difficult situations, sometimes needs to move from our heads to our hearts. It is one thing to declare our faith in God and meditate on His promises, which are both good things to do during life’s pressures, but it is another to find a heart at peace throughout the ordeal.

We suggested one thing that might help: to think on those of God’s attributes that particularly speak to the human heart. For example, God is kind, and His everlasting kindness is always directed towards us. And God is faithful. God keeps His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments. As spiritual descendants of God’s chosen people through faith in the risen Christ, His faithfulness will always reach to us.

The second instruction in this short proverb is to “lean not on your own understanding”. In other words, look beyond the limits of your thinking and imagination. I have found that simple trust in God during challenging circumstances can be easily killed when I allow my mind to wander. When I think I understand every part of the situation; when I cannot see a way through, when I make assumptions about other people. When I put too much confidence in my own understanding of what is going on.

A friend of mine tells the story of working with a person whose attitude towards him seemed uncaring, rude, and even, at times, hostile. He wondered what he had done to offend him and even became afraid of “saying the wrong thing”. He felt he had to “walk on eggshells” around him. He struggled to come to terms with the thought that a Christian brother would behave like this workmate.

Until, one day, he realised that his partner was displaying some symptoms of a mental health condition. A well-known neurological disorder. The man wasn’t meaning to be rude; his brain was just wired differently. With a little more understanding of the situation, my friend was able to pray for a new perspective and trust God for a way forward.

When we focus only on what we think we know, when we forget to question our assumptions, when we believe we have all the facts (when we don’t), it is easy to lean on our own understanding, instead of trusting God to solve the puzzle from the view He has of the bigger picture.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,

and he will make your paths straight”.

Seeking the Lord for His understanding is so much better than making judgments with only a handful of the facts.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,

and he will make your paths straight” (Prov 3:5-6).

Christians can, on occasion, find it hard to trust God in the situations that they face. It is not that God is not trustworthy, more that we can sometimes struggle to look away from the things that make us anxious, to a place where we rest in the peace that God wants to give us.

Today’s two verses from the Book of Proverbs give us three instructions that I believe help us to obey Jesus’ teaching in Matt 6 when he said, “do not worry about your life” (Matt 6: 25).

First, “trust in the Lord with all of your heart”. If you have been a follower of Jesus for any amount of time you will have read many verses that tell us, or encourage us, to put our trust in God. We can speak out our faith in God in difficult circumstances and we can read stories of others who have remained steadfast, hanging on to the promises of the Lord through life’s challenges.

But sometimes the concept of trust stays in our heads (that is, “I know I need to put my faith in God in this situation, so I’ll just keep saying the verses”) but it doesn’t reach our hearts. God wants us – you, to trust Him from the depths of your heart. How do we do that?

I am still learning this, but I find it helpful to think about those attributes of God’s character that particularly speak to the human heart. Here are a couple that speak to me:

First, God is kind. Following the Lords severe judgment of the nation of Israel by way of their Babylonian captivity, He made this promise to His children through the prophet Isaiah,

“In a surge of anger

I hid my face from you for a moment,

but with everlasting kindness

I will have compassion on you,”

says the LORD your Redeemer (Isaiah 54: 8).

God is a God of compassion, and His everlasting kindness is always directed towards His people – towards us. Therefore, He will treat you kindly in your situation.

Second, God is faithful. What does it mean that God is faithful? Deuteronomy 7: 9 reminds us that “…he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.”

A thousand generations is a very long time. If five generations is about a hundred years, then a thousand must be at least two hundred times that. As Christians, our spiritual roots come from God’s chosen people in the scriptures, way back in history. And Christ himself. Jesus perfectly loved His Father and kept His commandments. Therefore, God faithfully keeps His covenant of love to Him and therefore, also to us.

In other words, God is faithful to us because He is faithful to His Son and to His people. And so, God will be faithful to you, in your situation. He will not let you down. He sees it all and knows how to work it out.

Therefore, you can trust Him with all of your heart. And the promise is: He will make your paths straight. We don’t need to be zigzagging all over the shop trying to find peace or struggling to make a decision. We can trust Him with all of our heart.

“If the Lord had not been on our side— let Israel say — if the Lord had not been on our side when people attacked us, they would have swallowed us alive when their anger flared against us; the flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept over us, the raging waters would have swept us away. Praise be to the Lord, who has not let us be torn by their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the fowler’s snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth” (Ps 124: 1 – 8)

I wonder if you have ever pondered a memory where, on reflection, if God hadn’t answered that prayer, if that thing hadn’t happened, if that person hadn’t arrived when they did, your situation might have turned out very differently.

Sometimes we only see the hand of the Lord when we look back afterwards.

I remember a time, when for a long season, I couldn’t work out what God was doing. A couple of people, good people, misunderstood my reasons for a decision that I made, and they began to think the worst of me. I tried to explain what was going on, we had several conversations, but things just went from bad to worse.

There isn’t space here to tell the whole story, but as things continued to go pear-shaped, I struggled to discern what God was up to. Until I realised (very slowly) that The Lord had plans I knew nothing about. New plans for me and new plans for the others involved in the situation.

Now, when I reflect on that portion of my life, I realise, like the psalmist, that if the Lord hadn’t been on our side (or “for us”, as he promises in Rom 8: 31: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”), if He hadn’t granted me wise counsel form another brother at just the right time, if circumstances had played out differently, well… I dread to think how things might have turned out.

But the truth is, God fulfilled his purposes, and He answered prayers, even though some answers were unexpected. He made me realise how much I needed Him, and He challenged me on a few things too.

If the Lord hadn’t been on my side, if (with His help) I hadn’t clung to His promises, remembering that He is the Maker of heaven and earth (and so can do anything), I might not have seen the victory. I might have missed the new thing He was creating.

When stuff happens, it is easy to take our eyes off the Lord, to forget that as His children, He is “on our side”. It may take a while to realise that he is readjusting some plans and expectations, so that “our side” is shaped to His purposes, but He will keep us safe in the battle that gets us there.

Remember: The Lord is on your side. And His purposes in your situation are good purposes.

“Show me your ways, LORD,

teach me your paths.

Guide me in your truth and teach me,

for you are God my Savior,

and my hope is in you all day long” (Ps 25: 4 – 5).

I don’t know if David intended this when he wrote Psalm 25, but it seems to me there is a big difference between God’s Ways and His Paths.

The phrase “God’s Ways” in the Scriptures can refer to several things. It might be His plans or his actions, or His decisions, but it is always related to His character. His ways are who He is, seen by what He decides to do (or not do). It describes how His principles shape His will; how His wisdom drives His judgments and choices.

If we were to liken these descriptions to a human analogy, God’s ways are like the rules and principles of safe driving - the rules of the road or Highway Code as it is referred to in some countries. With that picture in mind, God’s paths can be His directions to your destination.

When we pray, “show me your ways” we are asking Him to reveal to our minds and hearts how we can drive our lives within the wise and safe boundaries of His will and within the principles of His Word. When we pray, “teach me your paths”, this overlaps with a desire to know His ways, but it is also asking for specific guidance.

“Lord, what is my destination?” “How do I get there?” “Do I go the long way round, or is there a shortcut?” “Is there a blockage in the road some distance away that I don’t yet see?” “Do I turn left here or right?”

Sometimes I think I need to pray something like, “Lord, teach me to recognise your paths”. The Lord doesn’t need to change the way He speaks, but I need to learn to how hear and discern His voice better than I do. If I am driving the car of my life too fast, the Lord’s directions to take a slow detour may not be heard above the roar of the engine.

The Ways of the Lord are referred to four more times in Psalm 25. God instructs sinners in His ways and the humble are taught His way. The ways of the Lord are loving and faithful and those that fear the Lord are given first-hand instruction as to the ways they should choose.

Our loving Heavenly Father has much to teach us on our journey towards His destination. He wants to transform our minds and our characters to be more like His, so that while driving safely, we move with passion and purpose. He also wants to teach us how to read His map, what speed to drive down each part and where and when to stop and take a break.

Sometimes we may come to a fork in the road and wonder which way to go. He may whisper “this way” to those who can hear, or He may say, “You choose. You know my ways, I have equipped and empowered you to make good decisions”.

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he famously lists the essential offices that leaders carry in churches under his care – people who serve as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Their purpose? “To equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

God wants his people to be mature in their faith, full of Christ, equipped for every task, “Built up”.

The apostle continues: “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Eph 4: 11 – 16)

I want you to notice that although we rightly celebrate and honour the role of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers as they equip us to serve God, mould us towards unity and increase our knowledge of Jesus, the responsibility for growth also lies on us.

Paul tells us we can grow by speaking the truth to each other in love, and we can grow by building up one another in love. Paul sees growth as a together activity. Within a community that is soaked in love.

Like a human body, the parts of Christ’s body cannot exist on their own. We are joined to each other, “held together by every supporting ligament”. We grow in our faith as a unity. Together. Together in love.

The body of Christ “grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work”. I can convince myself that I am growing in my faith as I study Scriptures on my own. That is an important part of my day, but if I only read God’s Word in solitude, I don’t hear the insights of those who are different to me. I miss the joy of seeing a verse impact a friend in a new way, and I’ll lose the benefit of a brother’s Godly challenge as he speaks the truth in love.

I can try to be brave as I face life’s challenges, seeking the Lord for help, waiting for His promises to come to pass. But on my own will never be enough. There will always be something missing. As God’s children, we are joined, held together, which means my tears become your tears and your sorrows become mine. The new creation of God’s people under Christ as the head, and shepherded by his appointed leaders, still needs to “build itself up in love, as each part does its work”.

Building and growing is not a solo activity in the New Testament. It requires the challenge of sharing my life with others; opening up when I’d rather face the darkness alone. Finding the work Christ wants me to do to strengthen his body in the place where he has called me to serve alongside others.