Today's Daily Bread

MOSES WAS WEAK BUT GOD WAS STRONG

Date : Thursday, January 08, 2026
Passage : Exodus 4:1~17
Keyverse : 5  
1
Moses answered, "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ’The LORD did not appear to you’?"
2
Then the LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?" "A staff," he replied.
3
The LORD said, "Throw it on the ground." Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it.
4
Then the LORD said to him, "Reach out your hand and take it by the tail." So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand.
5
"This," said the LORD, "is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers - the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob - has appeared to you."
6
Then the LORD said, "Put your hand inside your cloak." So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous - it had become as white as snow.
7
"Now put it back into your cloak," he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.
8
Then the LORD said, "If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first sign, they may believe the second.
9
But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground."
10
Moses said to the LORD, "Pardon your servant, 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."
11
The LORD said to him, "Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the LORD?
12
Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."
13
But Moses said, "Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else."
14
Then the LORD’s anger burned against Moses and he said, "What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you.
15
You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do.
16
He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him.
17
But take this staff in your hand so you can perform the signs with it."
If there was one thing Moses learned from forty years of wilderness life, it was that he was weak. He was raised as a prince of Egypt. He studied under the best teachers of Egypt. He acquired knowledge and felt there was nothing he could not do—even the liberation of his suffering people. But he was wrong. After his initial failure, after living as an exile, his view of himself changed. Tending his father-in-law’s sheep in Midian was a learning experience. Sheep were helpless and demanding. Moses slowly learned to be their shepherd, which would later help him lead the Israelites to the Promised Land. They were just like sheep.

Moses had learned that he was weak, but there was another thing he had yet to learn: God was strong. Moses stubbornly held on to half of the truth, that he was weak, but had a hard time accepting the other half, that God was strong and that He, not Moses, would deliver His people.

God patiently planted faith in Moses through miracles. A staff turned into a snake and then back. His hand became leprous and then healed instantly. God also gave him a promise of a miracle, that the Nile River would become blood. Yet Moses was slow in accepting God’s call. This time, he brought up his speech problem.

Prayer: Father, thank you for your long-suffering patience in planting faith in me. Amen.
One Word: I am weak but God is strong