You know that feeling you get when you’re “the new girl” somewhere? Or you are trying something new for the first time? Perhaps you and your family visit a new Church and are uncertain if you will be welcomed. Maybe you are stepping out of your comfort zone, and joining a gym for the first time. Or it could be you are a new Mama, trying to figure this season of life out, one difficult day at a time.
Whatever “new” thing you are going through, remember – we have all been there at one time or another. Everybody at that Church you are visiting was once a ‘first-time guest’. Those faithful faces you see at the gym? They were all beginners once, too. And that Mom who seems to have it all together with her multiple kiddos who are super cute and well mannered (in public)? She struggles too. (Still!)
We all go through new seasons in life. Just when you think you have today figured out, tomorrow happens, inevitably bringing a new “first time” all over again.
Don’t be afraid of the “first time feelings”. We worry too often we will not be good enough. People might laugh. We will fail. Our anxieties will try to control our behavior. Take a look at a “first” in Moses’ life from Exodus 3:
2 And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. 4 And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.
Exodus 3:2, 4
This is the first time it is recorded in scripture that God appeared to Moses and spoke to Him. Can you imagine the thoughts and emotions that were going through Moses’s mind? Here was a burning bush, not consumed by the fire, and the voice of God speaking to him from the midst of it. I would imagine this “first” was a little nerve-wracking for Moses. God gave Moses instructions and a job to do, and we see Moses’s hesitation and feelings of inadequacy a few verses later in the way he responded to God.
11 And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?
Exodus 3:11
God quickly reminded Moses the one, most important piece of information he was forgetting. In all his feelings, and all his fears and worries, Moses forgot who God was. Moses forgot that God would be with him (as He already told him He would be). He forgot about his forefathers who had God with them through the hard times and the challenges.
He forgot in that moment, in the new, first-time situation to simply trust God.
14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM…
Exodus 3:14
Sometimes all we need to do is remember God. Take our eyes off our uneasiness, and rest in the fact that He has us right where we are for a purpose. God has a plan, and will never leave you nor forsake you.
