Brain Trust
Narrative Lectionary Daily Devotions written by Kace Leetch from Clergy Stuff.
It's funny to me that God would choose someone with poor speech to be God's voice for a nation. But then again, it's not so odd when I consider this is God we're talking about. God can choose anyone God wishes. God can choose to give the gift of speech to Moses. Or, God can choose to send Aaron to be the spokesperson for Moses. And that's just what God did.
Moses, one of God's greatest prophets, did not act alone. Without Aaron, the entire thing would have gone down quite differently. God knew what Moses was capable of, and put in Moses' path the people who could do the things he wasn't great at.
We live in a culture that values independence. We like to achieve great things all by ourselves. We want to know that we did it without anyone's help. But that's just not how God wired us. We were created to be in community. We were created to be interdependent -- needing to rely on others for our survival.
Recently, I had an opportunity to attend the speech of Brene Brown, one of my mindfulness/resilience gurus. She shared with us the people who were in her "brain trust" -- people who she could bounce ideas off of -- people who would tell her the truth. She shared an impressive list of celebrities and powerful people in her brain trust -- Maya Angelou, JK Rowling, Oprah. Then she revealed none of these folks actually knew they were in her brain trust! :) But she held them, their wisdom, and their perspectives in her head as she contemplated decisions she had before her. They were voices of reason that she could trust, even though they didn't even know it.
There's some wisdom in the concept of building a brain trust. We can all use people (real people that we actually know) who will tell us the truth, and who we can bounce all our crazy ideas and challenging choices off of. We need people, even if we don't want to. Who will be in your brain trust?
Narrative Lectionary Text: Exodus 6:28-7:7
On the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, he said to him, “I am the Lord; tell Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I am speaking to you.” But Moses said in the Lord’s presence, “Since I am a poor speaker, why would Pharaoh listen to me?”
The Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and I will multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. When Pharaoh does not listen to you, I will lay my hand upon Egypt and bring my people the Israelites, company by company, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out from among them.” Moses and Aaron did so; they did just as the Lord commanded them. Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh.