I Am Moses: How Charlton and Cecil Have Misled Us

I had an epiphany recently: I am Moses.

Not the Moses parting the Red Sea.

Not the Moses facing down the power of Egypt, smiting the Nile so that it turns to blood. Not the Moses calling down the hordes of locusts.

No, I am the Moses balking at his calling, filled with misgivings and overflowing with excuses, pretty sure I’m not up to the task.

I think Charlton (Heston) and Cecil (B DeMille) have done us a disservice, portraying Moses as the bold and unflinching leader of his people. DeMille’s much-awarded 1956 film, The Ten Commandments, portrays a showdown between two powerful personalities, Charlton’s Moses and Yul Brynner’s Pharaoh. There was a lot of machismo, both men glaring at each other, neither one willing to back down.

But the picture we get of Moses in Scripture is not so intrepid. And it’s not just at the burning bush but throughout the rest of his story: Scripture shows us a picture of Moses as frustrated and anxious, often stretched to the breaking point.

I could never be Charlton Heston’s version of Moses. For one thing, I don’t have that jaw line.

Or his cheekbones.

More importantly, I don’t have that swagger and that molten intensity.

The Moses that resonates with me is the one we see in Scripture, the man who knew he was in over his head and found it so often necessary to cry out to God for His help.

So I’ve got a new ministry mantra: “I am Moses.”

Am I feeling overwhelmed because I don’t have the wisdom to address the complex needs of ministry in our rapidly changing culture?

No worries. I am Moses. He didn’t have what it takes, either, and he knew it. And that awareness drove him to his knees before God.

Do I feel that no amount of experience will ever gain for me the competence and confidence I see in others?

This is not a problem because I am Moses. There is an old saying that Moses spent forty years thinking he was somebody, forty years realizing he was a nobody, and forty years seeing what God could do with a nobody.

Like Moses, my confidence doesn’t lie in my abilities, not even in my potential. My confidence is anchored in the One who called me and has promised to go with me.

When I am overwhelmed (and I often am), I remind myself that I am Moses.

Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Pastor of Discipleship