Want your life to actually improve? This has to be your first step
Reading Time 2 mins 30 secs –
What have you been battling this week?
Anger? Grief? Fear? Anxiety? Insecurity? Depression? Sin?
Or have you been battling bad habits like complaining, or gossiping, or watching too much TV, or eating too much sugar?
We all have something, or some things, we’re battling or trying to overcome.
Especially right now when there are so many things going on in our world, so many external battles.
But here’s the thing:
You HAVE to win the internal battles before you can win the external battles.
You have to win the battles within FIRST.
When God called Moses to become a great leader in Exodus 3, we see that Moses had an internal battle.
But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
—Exodus 3:11 (NIV)
Who am I, God? I can’t do something like that!
You can bet Moses was afraid. It’s clear he was insecure. He doubted his ability, and he doubted that anyone would listen to him. And those battles didn’t just go away because God spoke. Moses still battled himself even after God said HE would be with him and gave Moses instructions on how to move forward.
Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?”
—Exodus 4:1 (NIV)
Look at what happened next:
Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?”
“A staff,” he replied.
The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.”
Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it.
—Exodus 4:2-3 (NIV)
Did you catch that? Moses RAN. He RAN AWAY! And he didn’t just run away from the snake. He ran away from what God was calling him to do!
But then God told Moses to reach out his hand and take the snake by the tail. And Scripture doesn’t tell us, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a pretty long pause after God told Moses to do that. Moses might even have told God, “No way, God. I don’t want to. I’m not touching that thing.”
It may have taken a few minutes, but Moses ended up stepping into the position God had called him to. He grabbed hold of the snake and subdued it. He brought it under the authority of the Kingdom of God.
Listen, I know what it’s like to face things that seem so much bigger than you. And I know what it’s like to want to run away. But, friend, you need to know that God leads you to the battles for your promotion, not to harm you.
So, know from this point on that you WILL have days when you will have to fight your emotions and your flesh—when you will have to battle yourself.
That’s when you’ll have to remind yourself WHO you are and WHOSE who are, no matter how the situation looks.


