I AM That I AM

In Exodus chapter 3 we find the tale of the Moses and the Burning Bush. We see God reveal God’s self to Moses and explain what Moses was supposed to do, but Moses had so many worries. God identifies God’s self as the God of the Israelites’ fathers; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God tells Moses to go and says, “I AM THAT I AM” and to go and tell God’s people that I AM sent Moses. Why was the “I AM THAT I AM” so important?

Moses was confronted by God, and like many of us who come face to face with the Almighty, Moses began to make excuses. Moses brought up everything that could get in the way of following God, and the most amazing part was that Moses decided that he was not qualified to talk to Pharaoh. The reason why this was the most amazing was the fact that Moses was raised as the younger brother to Pharaoh and would have built a strong relationship there. Moses was so afraid that he would get hurt or killed and decided that there was no way that God could get him through all of this. Then, God began to speak. When God spoke “I AM THAT I AM”, God was trying to tell Moses to remember the history of his people. God had done the impossible countless times with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God had done miracles and wonders that was not unfathomable. God was telling Moses that the God talking to Moses was the God who spoke to Moses’s ancestors. God was trying to point out that if God could do all these things before then trust God for God knows what God is doing.

This hope that God offered Moses is a hope that we can hold onto today. The I AM that sent Moses to do the impossible (according to Moses) is the God that is working in our lives today. The God of the Old Testament is still the God of the New Testament. In all our dealings and all our struggles, we need to remember that what we see is impossible is something God sees as a super possible.

I love thinking of that stereotypical situation between a father and a son. The son thinks they can do all the stuff that his dad can do. The son constantly says “oh that’s nothing” so the dad gives him some work to do. The son struggles all day to get the first part of the job done and thinks that the work is impossible. The dad sits the son down and asks how the son was doing at the work, and the son cries saying that “It is impossible. There is no way that you do this work all day.” The father calmly looks at the son and say, “You’re right, I get that done by 10am every morning.”

Do not worry or fret for God says, “I AM THAT I AM.”