Of all the people in the Bible, Moses is the person I most relate to. Now before you judge me, let me explain why. Although he is probably best known for leading the Hebrews out of Egypt, and receiving the Ten Commandments, the thing that stood out to me most about Moses’ story was his doubt. He doubted that God had chosen the right person for the task; he doubted that he would be able to get the job done. The story of the burning bush is filled with objection after objection from Moses about why he shouldn’t do what God is asking him to do. And in the end, Moses convinces God to pick his brother Aaron to do some of the work for him. That’s what I relate to.

You see, I’ve never thought of myself as someone with good leadership qualities. I’m not someone who could confidently stand at the front of a room and talk with authority. In fact, that terrifies me! The idea of being in charge of anything is not appealing to me at all. To me, those are qualities that a leader should have and so I’ve just never thought of myself as a leader. But God doesn’t think the way that I think.

This past summer I led a Ball Hockey program in the Aldershot community in partnership with the Next Door Social Space. Now if you told me a year ago that I would be doing this, I’d say you were crazy. But God doesn’t usually give you the whole picture and ask you to jump all in. In my experience, it’s always been little tiny steps, just enough to make me sweat but not too much that I will run the other direction. That’s how things unfolded for me with the Ball Hockey program. God had been slowly nudging me for months before the program idea even presented itself. I knew, by the time the program needed a leader, that it was God who had orchestrated this. But of course, like my friend Moses, all I could think of was a list of objections.

‘God, are you sure I’m the right person for this?’
‘God, I can’t even stomach the idea of teaching Sunday School and you want me to do this?’
‘God, what if these kids don’t listen to me?’
‘God, are you sure there aren’t some better candidates out there?’

And if I’m honest, there probably are lots of better candidates out there for the job. But God wasn’t really interested in picking the better candidate. He wasn’t interested in having the best Ball Hockey program in Burlington. He was interested in me! He wanted me to have faith that He had it all under control, despite my inexperience. He wanted me to have faith that He would give me all the tools I needed. He wanted me to rely on Him and only Him.

And now that the program has wrapped up for the year, I can’t help but still think ‘why me?’. I would be lying if I said I looked forward to every Monday night this summer. We had a great time, but some nights were very difficult. One night I even cried in front of the kids out of frustration. Some weeks Mondays just felt like a big reminder to me of how imperfect I am. But what I’ve been learning recently is that we don’t make the decision to follow Christ because it’s easy. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. God calls me to take up my cross and get out of my comfort zone so that through my sacrifices, others will see Him. All the while He promises that no matter how difficult or uncomfortable things may become, I can always trust that He is with me and will provide everything I need to do what He’s called me to. When I trust God, I become a leader, bringing people to salvation. Just like my friend Moses.