The Reluctant Leader

Have you ever felt inadequate, unqualified, or simply reluctant to step into a leadership position? We sometimes have the idea that the best leaders are those who are always decisive and confident in their abilities. But one of the greatest leaders of all history was a reluctant leader- a man named Moses.

Moses had serious objections to his calling. He was not a skilled communicator. He questioned God. He gave God excuses. And ultimately Moses asked God to send someone else to lead. Yet God used Moses powerfully to deliver the nation of Israel from slavery and lead them to the Promised Land.

Moses' story reminds us that God doesn't always call the most confident, qualified, or eager person to lead. Sometimes He calls the reluctant. Because the best leaders are not necessarily the ones who feel capable, but rather the ones who will simply trust and obey.

The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

- Exodus 3:7-10

But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

- Exodus 3:11

Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

- Exodus 3:13

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

Moses said to the Lord, “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”

- Exodus 4:10

But Moses said, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.”

- Exodus 4:13