We have a scarecrow that my grandmother made, and it is not a good scarecrow. It has never scared anything. Crows sit on it. Crows have raised families on it. But it is hers, so it goes up every year in the same corner of the corn and nobody discusses it.
Bucky knocked it flat in the middle of July. He did it the way he does everything, which is not on purpose and not by accident either but by a third thing that only he has, and the whole post came out of the ground and went over sideways into the corn.
And the crows came in. Not because the scarecrow was working, because it never worked, but because a thing lying down in a corn field is interesting and a thing standing up is not.
So we went out to put it back up, and we had to walk into the middle of the block to get to the post, which is a thing nobody does in July. You walk the edges in July. There is no reason to be in the middle of a corn block when the corn is over your head.
The middle of that block was sick. The stalks were thin and the ears were small and there was rust up the leaves, and it had been going on long enough that you could see where it started. From the road it looked like the best corn we had ever grown, because from the road you see the outside rows, and the outside rows were beautiful.
My dad stood in there for a while with a leaf in his hand and did not say anything. Then he said a word I am not allowed to write down, and then he said thank the Lord for that goat, and those two sentences came out of him about four seconds apart, which I think about often.
We got most of that block. Not all of it. We would have got none of it in another two weeks.
God asks a question nobody wants to answer
Moses is standing in front of a burning bush arguing about his own mouth, and he is not being falsely modest, he is being accurate.
And Moses said unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. (Exodus 4:10)
That is a man giving God a reason, and it is a good reason. And God does not fix it. He does not hand him eloquence and He does not tell him he is better than he thinks. He asks a question instead:
And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD? (Exodus 4:11)
That is one of the most uncomfortable verses in the Bible and it is meant to be. God is claiming the making of the man He is sending. Not tolerating it. Claiming it.
You are not a mistake God is politely working around. Exodus 4:11 puts the shape of a person on God rather than on chance, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes that land as being wanted instead of as a verdict.
And then, having claimed it, He says the sentence that is actually the answer: Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth. Not I will change your mouth. I will be with it.
You have been given company rather than a repair, and that is the better half of the offer. The written word says He goes with the mouth as it is, and His Spirit is what turns that from a nice line into something a person can walk out of a room on.
The outside rows always look fine
Here is the part of that afternoon I keep coming back to, and it is not really about scarecrows.
From the road, that corn was the best we had ever grown. Everybody who drove past said so. My dad said so. He had said it to Mr. Ames on the Tuesday, and he meant it, because he had walked the edges the way you do and the edges were beautiful.
The Bible is honest about this in a way people are not. There is a whole line about it:
For the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)
People usually read that as a comfort, which it is. It is also a warning, and it is a very practical one, and it cuts in both directions: the outside rows can be hiding rust, and they can also be hiding good corn that nobody has walked in far enough to find.
You are seen at a depth that nobody driving past is operating at. 1 Samuel 16:7 says the Lord looks at the heart and does not say He looks at it kindly or unkindly, He says He looks at it, and the Spirit of God is what makes being seen that thoroughly a relief.
You have never been assessed from the road. That is what the verse actually claims, and the Holy Spirit is the one who moves it from a saying people repeat into a thing that changes how somebody walks into a room.
So here is what I would say, standing in the middle of a corn block in July with a scarecrow lying down behind me.
You are not the problem that got into the field. You are somebody God has already claimed the making of. Exodus 4:11 asks who made the mouth and answers its own question, and the Holy Spirit is what keeps that from being a line in a book about somebody else.
That scarecrow never scared a crow in its life. Not one. It is a bad scarecrow and my grandmother was not good at making scarecrows, and it went in the ground every year anyway, and the year it fell over is the year we walked into the middle of the block.
You have not been kept out of anything by the parts of you that do not work. 1 Samuel 16 says the Lord looks past the outside rows entirely, and His Spirit is what makes that read as safety instead of as exposure.
And this is for whoever is doing the reading out loud, who was told something about themselves at nine and has been carrying it since. You were made, and made is a word with somebody on the other end of it. The passage puts the making on God in a question He answers Himself, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes an old question arrive tonight.
Declare this over yourself
Say it out loud. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, so the authority to speak over the thing you were told about yourself is genuinely yours, delegated and never invented. God claimed the making of a man's mouth out loud, so speak to the idea that you were a mistake: you have standing to address it because He is the one who did the making. An ambassador carries the King's word and never his own policy, so say what God has said and leave the outcome to Him. Every line below is Exodus 4:11 and 1 Samuel 16:7 handed back in your own voice, and it is His Spirit, not your volume, that makes saying it a receiving.
- Idea that God made a mistake when He made me, you are answered and you are wrong. The Word of God says who hath made man's mouth, have not I the LORD, and He asked that question in order to answer it Himself.
- Voice that says I am the wrong shape, you are finished in the name of Jesus. The LORD seeth not as man seeth, and 1 Samuel 16:7 says He looks at the heart while everybody else is still looking at the outside rows.
- Father, You have never once been working around me. I receive that today, and I thank You that Your word does not say You would change my mouth, it says You would be with it, and being with is the better half.
Exodus 4:11
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