STUDY 7: HANDLING IMPEDIMENTS

 

The character of Moses is what I’m trying to understand; How can a man who had so much passion to deliver Israel from the fierceness of the taskmasters of Egypt, so much so that he could kill one of the taskmasters who was maltreating an Israeli, how can such a man all of a sudden, begin to give excuses and state reasons why he wasn’t qualified  when God finally beckoned on him to go back to Egypt after he had fled, and deliver the Israelites from the hands of their taskmaster. Moses was given the full permission and authority to go and execute what he was passionate about from the beginning, yet, impediments are so powerful, they almost stopped him.

Impediments are the little drops that seem to want to stop the flow, they can hinder progress if we let them and a number of things can become impediments in our lives; they could be natural impairments or physical disabilities like blindness, health conditions or self-imposed impediments; things we feel can disqualify us from living to the fullest the life God designed us to live.

In the case of Moses, he said to God “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He probably had a mind status of the kind of person God would be willing to use, a profile list of qualifications he felt he had not attained. In addition to that, there was a part of his physical characteristics that he felt could hinder him from the being the right person for the assignment God was sending him to execute – He was a stammerer. So, he said to God in Genesis 4:   10 “I am not eloquent or a man of words neither before nor since you have spoken to your servant; For I am slow to speech and have a heavy and awkward tongue”  can you see what Moses considered as an impediment? He saw himself as a man who was not fit, not physically capable of talking to Pharaoh, and in fact not qualified for the assignment.

Yet do you know that after everything, Moses when he obeyed and allowed God work through him, he became the man that victoriously led about 600,000 men out of Egypt and one of the most referred leaders in Israel. This man had supposed impediments that would have hindered him from setting out to liberate the thousands and thousands of people who were in bondage, in Egypt, that impediment wanted to hinder him from being a part of the bigger picture, it was to stop him from being a channel through which people would be liberated and of course hinder him from being a part of the blessing. You see why I said impediments are powerful? They truly can cause a lot,

so how do we handle impediments?

God’s response to Moses, after he had finished explaining his ‘ordeal’ was quite interesting, He said to him in Genesis 4: 11 “Who has made man’s mouth? Or makes the dumb, or the deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Is it not I, the Lord?”  God needed Moses to know that He is aware and fully in charge of the situation, so God knows it and needs us to know that He is the one that created that part of our body, Yes! Even the part you are struggling to accept and He wants us to know that He has it all figured out but, He needs us to trust Him on this one.

Whether you were born with an ‘inability’ or you had an accident or something happened along the way, and you have to live with it for the rest of your life, does that tarnish your identity? Does it make you less capable of fulfilling all that you were meant to fulfil on earth and live to the fullest?

The truth is No! God is fully aware and in-charge of the situation and He needs you to know that but that’s not all He wants you to do; He wants you to submit that seemingly impediment to Him and allow Him use it to His Glory. He told Moses “Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and will teach you what you shall say” God needed Moses to get Him involved, He needed Moses to submit that Mouth and seeming speaking impediment to Him, so that He would teach Him how to better use it. It is the same thing He requires from all of us. One thing is sure, God can do anything  with us and can use any part of us for His glory if we let Him, all that He needed Moses to do was to obey and submit to His plan and when Moses finally did, God made a wonder out of Him.

Impediments are natural realities, but truth is, they can be engaged to our profit.

Thank you being a part of identity challenge, if there are questions in your mind or topics you will like us to discuss please drop it in the comment section, I’m happy to be doing this with you.