Exodus 32:11 And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?
There is incredible power in pronouns, is there not? Here is a couple, and one day the father says about their son, “That’s my boy.” A day later he says to his wife, “Would you go talk to your son?” What is he doing? He is switching ownership from one to another of the parents depending upon how the boy is doing. There is incredible power in pronouns.
Exodus 32:7 says, “And the LORD said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.” God seems to be telling Moses that the children of Israel are Moses’ people, and he was to take care of them.
In verse 11, Moses begged the Lord, “Why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?” In one verse God says to Moses, “Your people.” In another verse Moses says to God, “God, these are Your people.”
It does matter how I view the things in my life, whether they are mine or God’s. If you give God problems when things are bad, you need to give God credit when things are good. In this story, Moses was trying to transfer ownership back to God. Of course, God knew things clearly from the get-go, but it was an opportunity for Moses to be reminded of Who owned and guided Israel.
It would have been easy for Moses to say, “Wow, look what I did with my staff as we crossed the Red Sea and Israel followed me.” That ethic would have led to absolute despair and discouragement when Israel was doing wickedly. In both cases, God was the One Who owned and led Israel. God led them out of Egypt, and God was still their God when they were worshipping idols.
What a wonderful life it is when we transfer ownership of everything we know and possess to God. It is God’s day, God’s work, God’s home, God’s people. It is easy to take ownership when things are going well and to blame God when things are going badly. But every day, God would have us to remember, as He had Moses to remember here, that there is incredible power in a pronoun. Whatever is in your life today, give it to God. The more God owns the more power you steward.