What Should I Tell Them?
Who do you say God is?
Verse of the Day
‘But Moses protested, “If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?”’
Today’s Devotional
Many times in my life I have met new people and been asked to tell them about myself. This is such a loaded, multi-faceted request. I can tell you my gender, my marital status, how many kids I have and their ages, the roles I play, the work I do. In sharing these details, I am allowing this new person to know ABOUT me, but this doesn’t really help them to KNOW me.
I have spent much of my spiritual journey wanting to learn ABOUT God without taking the time and effort to KNOW God. There’s no shame in that. It’s a part of the process. The more I know about God, the more I am drawn to Him.
At the beginning of this year, I began a Bible reading plan that goes through the entire Bible chronologically in a year. In preparation for this, the leader of this plan issued a challenge:
“Stop reading the Bible and looking for yourself. The Bible is not about you. Read the Bible looking for God. Look for who He is. Look for what He loves, and what He hates. Look for what motivates Him to do what He does.”
This has been a fascinating and new lens for reading the Bible for me.
Also at the beginning of the year, I spent some time writing down the things I would love to change about myself, my habits, my routines. There are always so many areas in which I see the need for growth and improvement in myself. As I was praying over which of these items needed to become official goals, I felt my heart being tugged in a different direction. What if my goal was to submit and surrender myself more fully to the unchanging God rather than focusing on what I want to change about myself? What if my goal was to deepen my relationship with God and let Him decide what (and when) I need to change?
Based on these recent experiences, I want to know and learn as much as I can about the God I serve so that I can experience Him more fully.
In the context of today’s verse, God has appeared to Moses from a burning bush. Moses is being called by God to go to Egypt to save the Israelites from slavery and oppression. And it’s a pretty big ask from Moses’ perspective. Moses responds to God with several objections, posed in the form of questions. “Who am I to do this? And who do I say is sending me?”
It’s interesting to me that Moses thinks the people will want to know God’s name. But then I remember that these people have been living in Egypt for 400 years. Egypt is a land with many gods, all of whom have a name and are gods of different things.
So which God is sending Moses?
Which God is calling you?
Your name is part of your identity. It’s part of how you are known to others. Is that also true for God? For today, I want each of us to sit quietly with a pen and paper and answer these questions:
Imagine you meet a person who has never heard of God or Jesus or Christianity or any of the world religions. They have zero exposure to God. None. In the course of getting to know you, it becomes clear that you believe in God. Curious, this person asks…
Who is God? What is His name? Tell me about Him. Why would I want to know God? Who is God to you?
Take the time to really ponder the answers to these questions today. Because what you believe about God is the most important thing about you.
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
Who is God to you?
What is His name?
What would you say about Him to someone who has never met Him?
Who is God to you?
Why would anyone else want to know your God?