March 7/D66: Bury Your Seeds Of Doubt (Ex. 6-9)

Search your heart, look for the seeds of doubt, and ask God to help you bury them once and for all.

Welcome to Rinse Reflect Repeat, the daily podcast inspired by my action-driven devotional

and guide to reading the Bible through in a year, alphabetically. I'm Anita Cordell,

and each day we'll walk through the Bible discovering how even books like Leviticus and numbers

speak to our daily lives. These short devotions are here to cleanse our hearts and transform our

perspectives. So grab your Bible, open your heart, and let's journey through the living water

together. It's time to rinse, reflect, and repeat. We are here on March 7th or if you are following

the days, we are on day 66 of 365 days of reading the Bible through in a year, and today's devotion

is called Barrier Seeds of Doubt. Now today's morning rinse is Exodus 6 through 9, and we are

starting to talk about the plagues that incurred over Egyptian territory or Egypt, and so go ahead and

read those chapters and come on back and we will discuss the featured verse. So the featured verse

is Exodus 6 30, but Moses said before the Lord, Behold, I am unskilled in speech. How then will

Pharaoh listen to me? Can anyone relate to that? God, He has heard it all from the very beginning

with stories like Moses' example, all the way to present day, He has heard our excuses.

He is used to asking His people to do something, and then we begin to list our limitations,

and our reasons why we cannot complete it. I wonder if God just ever gets exhausted. It's almost like

He probably just expects it from us. I mean, why is this? Do we forget that God created us,

and He knows everything about us already? Do we doubt that He truly calls us to do something for

Him? Is it a lack of trust? I can confidently say that most Christ followers have done this at one

point in our faith walk. I know I have, and I, as a pastor's kid, I've heard it, so I can talk from

experience not just from my own life, but from watching Christ followers pretty much all my life.

I'm sure is frustrating for God. Moses, in fact, he did it several times. You know, when you look

through the scripture, he limited his own abilities, or he expressed those limitations to God several

times. Our featured verse actually was the third recorded time that He tells God His limitations.

The first one was Exodus 410 while God was telling Moses that He needed Him, like God saying,

I need you, and Moses is saying His limitations. The second time was in Exodus 612, and both the

second and the third times Moses told God about His limitations and His lack of ability to speak,

during His mission, after He had already started the process of freeing the Israelites.

So, can you imagine this? After He had been called and started His process, while He was in the

mission, during the mission, He listed off His limitations. I mean, this was after He had already

moved to Egypt to start His work. He had started this mission, and then He got cold feet.

I'm like, sometimes we sow seeds of doubt before we even begin, and then sometimes we sow seeds

of doubt during the process. Like, what? You know, we have faith to start, but then when we face this

roadblock of something, we try to quit. Have you ever started something that God has asked you to do?

And when things got tough, you try to quit. This is what Moses was doing. He was trying to find a

way out. He was pointing out the things that God would make His mission to challenging. I mean,

if God had asked us to do something, and when God asks us to do something, why do we lack the faith

to trust Him? And why do we lack the faith to trust that He's going to finish the work that He

started doing in our lives? I mean, I think sometimes we expect God to give us grace and

coddle us in these moments of doubt. And yet it says in scripture that when Moses started to express

his limitations, this was the very first time. Remember when I said this, today's featured versus

the third time that he expressed his limitations? Or it was the third recorded time. So there could

have been multiple times that Moses said this, but this is the third recorded time. But the first time

that it's recorded in Exodus 414, we read this in the morning, runs yesterday. God got angry at

Moses the very first time that it's recorded that he made excuses. Exodus 414, the first part of

that verse, it says, then the anger of the Lord burned against Moses. I mean, let me just pause

here. God has anger too. And in this moment, it burned inside of him. That's a deep expression

of how deep God's anger was. You know, it wasn't just that he was mad at a certain situation.

His anger burned inside of him. After a scripture says that it burned inside of him,

then God was saying, okay, like, here's Aaron, your brother. He's going to speak through you.

I don't know how that conversation went. I don't know what his tone was or if he was clearly

frustrated, but my guess is that Moses knew that he was upset because Moses is writing this,

and he knows that God is angry. You know, we all can have seeds of doubt creeping into our hearts.

All of us do. But discerning when they creep in and then grabbing those seeds and burying them

is how our faith grows. If all of God's children would learn to bury those seeds in the ground that

will destroy them, I can only imagine the work that we would accomplish for his kingdom. And I'm not

talking about seeds that we water. You know, you constantly talk about gardening analogies within

this scripture or gardening analogies when you come to spiritual growth. But if we bury things

and don't water them, they're not going to grow, right? So if we bury them away from all of us,

if we grab those out of our hearts, bury them so that the ground around them will destroy it,

I can only imagine the work that we would accomplish for his kingdom. So my encouragement to

you is to bury those seeds deep in the trash, not in the soil of our hearts where they can be even

accidentally watered. You know, sometimes we have seeds of doubt that can actually be accidentally

watered, right? So bury it in the trash and trust God, the creator of our call and the creator of

the one being called. That is you. We must trust God to provide all of our needs during the call.

This featured verse was in the very beginning of our morning rinse. And you know, if you've

already read the morning rinse, you know what happened after that, you know, because our featured

verse was like I said, in the very beginning of our morning rinse, but then after we started

reading it and and God said, here's Aaron, let him speak to you. Well, what happened after that?

So if you look at that in the scripture, it's like, then the Lord told Moses to go to Pharaoh.

Moses was still being used very heavily in this. He's the leader of this whole entire mission,

just Aaron's being used in his own capacity and his voice. But let's just look at some of the

things that happened in just these four chapters. The water then was turned to blood and there was

that plague. There was the plague of frogs and that whole story. There was the plague of insects and

that whole story. The cattle died on the Egyptian soil. That happened. Then there were boils.

Then there was hail. And let me just say this. I have clearly said before that I am not a Bible

scholar. I just love reading the word. And I love sharing the insights that I've learned. And one

of the things that I've wondered about is the length of time that all of these plagues occurred.

Because if you look at the scripture and the order of these plagues, the plague that the cattle

had died looking at that plague, the Egyptian cattle were gone in a moment. But then the next

plague was there's boils. And it says that there was boils on the animals that were around there.

So I'm thinking in my mind, how did they get more cattle? How did they get more livestock?

How did that happen? My guess is that either, you know, there had to have been some time

laps between the cattle dying and the boils. My guess is that the Egyptians had to recover

from all of these plagues. And so they recovered from the cattle dying. And probably, you know, if I

were to assume something which I, you know, I haven't read any kind of commentary. But my thoughts

would be, you know, the Egyptians went to other lands outside of Egypt and maybe he had to buy

some more land and buy some more livestock and even, you know, go through the process of more

cattle being born. I don't know. But there were boils that came upon, you know, even the animals.

And so I wonder how long the whole process was. And so that leads me to the concept of, you know,

it wouldn't put anything past me to believe that Moses had to bury his seeds of doubt in the trash

multiple times. And I'm encouraging you guys to remember that seeds of doubt will creep up,

you know, and if you feel like you are being called to do something, you know, whether it's

maybe picking back up singing or maybe it's trying again to be on a worship team or trying

your hand at Sunday school teaching. I don't know. But there's multiple times that we read about

already in these short chapters of Exodus that Moses doubted. And yet he was still in position

to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. And while God had that anger burning inside of him when

Moses shared his limitations, God's grace came in and he was like, okay, no more excuses.

I'm going to, you told me about this limitation. Okay, whatever. If that's what you want to believe,

that's what you'll believe. Here's Aaron. I'm providing you with a solution. So Moses couldn't

do anything about it. He had to go ahead with that about his day. So I, it just encouraged you.

If God says something, keep doing it. So today's challenge to dig deeper is what is God asking you to do?

Self-reflect. Is there something that he's asking you to do? Have you continued to doubt that call?

And have you ever been guilty just like myself and many other people, including Moses and other

people in the Bible, have you ever been guilty of listing your limitations? Search your heart.

Look for the seeds of doubt and ask God to help you bury them once and for all. The reality of it is

those seeds of doubt have to be exposed and you have to see them for what they are. Declare that you

will do what God is calling you to do and that you, you will say, okay, God, I commit to doing what

you're asking me to do. And this is what I'm asking, I feel like you're asking me to do. Today's the

day to put a line in the sand and cross over to the trust side. Bury the seeds of doubt that he

has revealed in your heart. And when you pull out your journal today, write down what those

seeds of doubt are that you ended up burying today because you may very well have to dog ear this

page. You may very well have to save this podcast. You may have to come back to this and listen

again because you may need to be reminded about burying the seeds of doubt in your heart.

And once you list those out and call them out, maybe it's fear. Maybe it's not only just fear of

stepping out, but maybe it's a little bit of fear of man. Like, what are they going to think of me?

Or maybe it's, you know, one of those things where you have to step out in faith and say, okay,

well, I've never done this before and I'm kind of lacking in knowledge. Well, that could be a

seed of doubt there, especially if you know God's calling you to do that. So write them down.

What seeds of doubt did you bury today and say an affirmation? Like, I will not pick this seed

back up again. I want you to write down as well. What is God calling you to do? Or what do you feel

like God is calling you to do? It could be a futuristic thing that is in your heart that you really

feel like God's wanting you to do. And it's going to take some time to flourish just like the time

was for all these plagues to happen and how long it took for Moses to actually get the Israelites

out of Egypt. It took a long time, but he knew that that's what he was called to do. And he also

had to make an effort to bury the seeds of doubt in him as well. I'm sure. My mission here is to help

you realize as you are listening to this that you have been made for more and that the things

that are in your heart are growing and I want to be a part of helping pull it out of you. Even if

it's in two more years, hopefully you will be encouraged to hear that there are stories out there

of other people. And look at what was beginning to happen with Moses. All these plagues

were just setting the story up for what would come and leading the Israelites out of Egypt.

And so I'm encouraging you today to call those seeds of doubt out, name them and then commit

to working with God to bury them in the trash and then write down what you feel like God is

calling you to do. I hope today was encouraging and if you haven't gotten my journal yet or if

you haven't gotten my devotional, be sure and look in the show notes and also to be sure and

join my Facebook group. Maybe there is someone that is really needing to hear your story. Maybe

there's someone who really needs to see your post about changes that you have made and I would

love for you to join that Facebook group and share with the community. I know it's sometimes a

little challenging to be vulnerable on things like this but I really want you to be encouraged

to join in on the conversation and hop on in and share your story as well. And until tomorrow,

keep rinsing, reflecting and repeating. God bless you.