Our hope for total God dependence remains, for now, a noble hope. We long for God’s Spirit to fill us and we long to speak inspired words, but too often, we speak from our own passions words that do not reflect God’s heart. This was the case with the great lawgiver Moses. He was a man of God, but he was not perfect.
As with you and me, he sometimes allowed his fury to speak and his own anger to show in inappropriate ways. Sometimes we charge forward without words when the Lord is far behind us calling to us. At such times, we are stumbling and full of self-pride. Then we utter meaningless phrases designed only to impress and draw praises to ourselves.
At the same time, we must speak and we must speak well. We must speak eloquently, but speaking well means speaking words of power, Spirit filled words, Biblical words. We must pepper our speech with scripture and salt or words with prayer. We must know that what we are saying is in keeping with His heart, and this we can know only when we know His word. Then we will utter words worth hearing. Before we speak, we must breathe out our own opinions and conceit, leaving room for His Spirit to fill us.
If we are genuinely interested in representing our Lord well, we might pray with Moses, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here” (Exodus 33:15, see also Exodus 34:9). Lord, if you will not speak through us, do not let us speak. If you will not write through us, do not let us write. If you do not go with us, we do not go.