4 Key Hurdles To Overcome Before Embarking On Your Assignment.

Happy New Year. I hope you had a wonderful holiday and are relaxed and ready to take on the new year. With that being said, I wanted to share a few thoughts to help us as we journey into the new year. You see, the reality is that we all have goals we want to accomplish. And there are some we are sure came from God. But just because God has given us an assignment does not mean that we will not experience blockages in achieving them. And that’s why I figured that today we should talk about the 4 Hurdles to overcome before embarking on your assignment.

• The life of Moses.
• The call of Moses.
• 4 Hurdles to overcome before embarking on your assignment
  • Lack of identity is one of the 4 hurdles to overcome before embarking on your assignment.
  • The fear of rejection is another hurdle to overcome before embarking on your assignment
  • The fear of not having what you need is yet another one of the hurdles to overcome before embarking on your assignment.
  • The ‘I am not good enough’ lie is the last of the 4 hurdles to overcome before embarking on your assignment
• Conclusion

I am a firm believer that sometimes it is easier to know the problems you will encounter on the way to help you plan how to overcome them. To understand the 4 Hurdles to overcome before embarking on your assignment, I would like for us to look at the life of Moses before and during His call and commissioning. Are you ready? Let’s dive right in.

The life of Moses.

Before we can look at his commissioning we need to understand his past. So here goes.

Moses was born at a time when the then Pharaoh was jealous of the Israelites and because of that wanted to oppress and to some extent wipe them out from the face of the earth. You see Pharaoh’s fear was legit. The Israelites had greatly increased in number. So he feared that in the event of an attack, the Israelites would partner with the Egyptians’ enemies and attack them. To prevent this from happening, Pharaoh decided that he would not only oppress the Israelites through forced labor. But that he would also kill the male children but leave the female ones. That of course would affect the future generation. And the sad part is, he instructed the midwife to do that. How cruel.

Anyway in Exodus chapter 2 of Exodus, we are I introduced to Moses’ mother who defies Pharaoh’s law and decides to spare her son. She went to the length of placing her son in a basket and then took the basket to the river. And she instructed her daughter to keep watch so she could see who would rescue him.

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That was when Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses and decided to adopt her. One of the interesting things to note here is how strategic God is. He knew the only way Moses’ life would be spared was if he was adopted by one of the Egyptians. And to even sweeten the deal, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him. How would her father say no?

Again God’s masterplanning skills did not end there. He ensured that Moses’s mother nursed him. This meant that in those crucial years of Moses, his mother’s voice was the predominant one. And because of that, Moses became aware of his identity and the God of the Jews. You see this points to the fact that God orchestrated every aspect of your life. So there are no mistakes in God just divine opportunities to encounter you. Again Moses being raised in the place taught him some leadership skills that he would later use to deliver the Israelites. Also, the fact that Moses was on the outside looking on meant that he could see the pain his people were going through. This strengthened the passion for his assignment which was to deliver his people from bondage.

Fast forward to now Moses as an adult, finds an Egyptian oppressing an Israelite and he decides to kill him. You would think the Israelites would be happy about that but no, they rejected him. To the point that when he tried to mediate an argument between two Israelites they turned against him asking him who made him judge or ruler over them. Not only that word came to Pharaoh of how Moses had killed an Egyptian and he sought to kill him. This scared Moses and so he ran away to Midian. While there he married Zipporah and started a new career as a shepherd. This went on for 40 years until it was God’s time to rescue his people. This was when we were introduced to the commissioning of Moses.

The call of Moses.

Moses already had an inkling of his assignment even before God commissioned him. This is clear when he kills an Egyptian to save his own. And the same goes for you. God already placed a solution inside you even before you were born. And to prove it to you, check out Romans 8. There was a destiny and a call on your life before you were born. You might not have known the specifics at the time or even now, but there is a call of God over your life.

And the easiest way you can know that is by answering the question what irks you the most in your community or world in general? If it irks you more than it does others, then God has called you to solve it. It does not matter how big the assignment is, the truth is that you have what it takes because God already equipped you. In Moses case,

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• He lived in the palace and was trained on how to be a leader and other important skills on how to govern and lead people.

• He lived in the wilderness for 40 years meaning he had the skills to lead the Israelites while they were in the wilderness

• And again his herding the flocks helped equip him with the compassion and tenderness needed to guide people who were clueless in a sense.

Let me ask you this, can you find a similarity between your current situation and your past? The reality is that God can never waste any season. With that being said, what could God be training you for based on your circumstances? It’s okay if you don’t know it yet. You can spend time with the Holy Spirit and ask Him for clarity. He wants to. After all, Jesus sent Him to be your helper.

We now get to chapter 3 when God appears to Moses in a burning bush. It was in this encounter that God commissioned Moses. But remember Moses had lost touch with the Israelites for 40 years because they had rejected him. So things were not easy. And also he wasn’t particularly excited to try something that he had failed before. Just like Moses, we all go through such a season where because of failure we become afraid to try again. Let us now look at the 4nhudles that just like Moses you need to overcome to step into your assignment.

4 Hurdles to overcome before embarking on your assignment

Lack of identity is one of the 4 hurdles to overcome before embarking on your assignment.

sometimes failure and the past can hinder you from stepping into the call God has over your life. This was the case with Moses. Because of facing rejection in the past and failing to accomplish what he felt he should do in his heart. He became afraid and allowed failure to be his new identity. What labels have you permitted to define you? The reality is that Moses had embarked on the assignment too soon. It was not yet time for God to use him to deliver the Israelites out of bondage. And to prove it to you here are scriptures.

God after making a covenant with Abraham told him that his descendants would live in bondage for 400 years. ¹² As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. ¹⁴ But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward, they will come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” Genesis 15

In Exodus, we see that they stayed for 430 years. ⁴⁰ Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years. ⁴¹ At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the Lord’s divisions left Egypt. ⁴² Because the Lord kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt, on this night all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honor the Lord for the generations to come. Exodus 12

Moses lived in the wilderness for 40 years. ²⁹ When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons.³⁰ “After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. Acts 7

This means that it was at most year 390 when Moses tried to rescue the Israelites from bondage. It was not yet time. And we all know that God’s word will never go back to Him void until it has accomplished that which He sent it out to do. And also He watches over His word to perform it.

There was no way Moses could have succeeded because it was not yet time. He had not even inquired of the Lord whether it was time or how he should have gone about delivering the Israelites. Again the same goes for you. Maybe you failed in the past and now God is asking you to try again. I want to encourage you not to allow failure to define you and hinder you from saying yes to your commissioning. When God gives you a yes, He will back you. And it does not matter how impossible it looks this time you will succeed. God has already factored in your past and your failures when He commissions you. And He knows how to cover them. Remember it is in your weakness that His strength is made manifest.

What failures did you experience in years prior? Today I want to encourage you to try again. If God has called you to take something back on, take it on. This time He is with you you will not fail.

Notice that when Moses tried to give the excuse of the Israelites not accepting Him, God answered that He would be with him. God wanted Moses to realize that this time his plan would be fail-proof because God would be with him.

¹⁰ So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” ¹¹ But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” ¹² And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”

God is with you, you will not fail. Don’t worry about your failures, fears, and your lack of identity. Recognize that you will find your identity in Him. And this will happen as you focus on Him and put your trust in Him. He can turn things around for you but only if you will let Him. Will you?

The fear of rejection is another hurdle to overcome before embarking on your assignment

Moses was afraid of what people would think of him and he was willing to forfeit his assignment. Again after God had answered his first fear, he now introduced another one. And this time he focused on what people would think.

¹³ Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

Again this is a valid fear. After all, the Israelites had doubted him the first time and even asked him who made him ruler and judge over them. Again the voices from his past spoke to him and reminded him that he had not officially been commissioned. And now when his true commissioning came about, he again doubted that he had been sent. I want you to know this, just because you acted on your impulses the first time, does not necessarily mean God did not call you. Could it be that when you tried it first it was just a matter of wrong timing and not wrong assignment?

And yes, they might have rejected you the first time, but now that God is with you, what makes you think they will reject you again? And even if they reject you, don’t you think God will help you still accomplish the assignment? God is with you. And He wants you to know that He has the solution to the hurdle hindering you from fulfilling your assignment. That was why God reassured Moses by telling Him that He is ‘I AM’. This meant that God being all sufficient had every solution to the problem they were facing.

What attribute of God do you need to encounter today? God has an answer. So child of God I want you to remember that God has not given you a spirit of fear but of power, love, and sound mind. It does not matter the fear you have today. You might be afraid of rejection, but today I want you to know that God wants to heal you from that and grant you the confidence to still do what He called you to do.

The fear of not having what you need is yet another one of the hurdles to overcome before embarking on your assignment.

Moses had yet another fear, he did not think he had what was needed to deliver the Israelites. He now focused on his external circumstances. He did not think he had the training needed to do the task. Do you like Moses feel like you don’t have enough training to fulfill your assignment?

Maybe you feel God calling you to apply for a job you know you don’t have the required experience. Whether it is a lack of experience entirely or even that your experience does not look relevant to the said job. I want you to know when God calls you, He qualifies you.

And again God asked Moses what he had.

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.”

God will never use anything outside of who you are. After all, how will God’s glory and power manifest if you have what it takes? Child of God today I want to encourage you to stop undermining and looking down on yourself. The very assignment God has called you to, He has equipped you for it. Granted, the experience and training might not be what is expected, But still, He has equipped you. Think about David for a second.

He did not have the expected training to defeat Goliath. In fact, before killing Goliath, he had only killed bears and lions- animals mind you. But God used the training he had to defeat Goliath. Have you ever heard of transferrable skills? God can use the skills you learned in one season to get you to another. He already knows how to adapt the skills you already have for your next season. That is why when He calls you, He is confident of your ability to perform. Unless God disqualifies you, you don’t need to disqualify yourself.

What you have is enough. Always remember that. You don’t need to go and get something that is outside your capabilities. At least not now. Of course, once God takes you to your new, you will need to learn the skills so you can stay and grow in that assignment. But when God is commissioning you, He will use what you already have. Unless He asks you to take up another skill. In which case, He will provide the avenue for you to do so.

The ‘I am not good enough’ lie is the last of the 4 hurdles to overcome before embarking on your assignment

This is one of the most difficult hurdles to overcome before embarking on your assignment as it comes from within. You see the greatest battle you and I will need to overcome to fulfill our assignments is the battle of the mind. The inner critic can hinder us from ever stepping into our calling. What lies has the enemy dumped in your mind? Do you feel inadequate? Maybe you think there is a certain way people should talk, behave, or sound if they want to succeed in their assignment. Have you allowed these lies to silence you?

Moses experienced the same. He disqualified himself based on his inadequacies. Think about it. He tried to convince his Creator that he was not eloquent enough. This was absurd considering he was speaking to the one who created him. Meaning God could have easily made him eloquent enough for the assignment. In fact, God even tells him that.

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.”

How many times have you found yourself trying to convince your Maker that you are not qualified or that you don’t have what it takes? God can do anything. Nothing is impossible with God. If you lack wisdom, He can make you wise through the Holy Spirit. After all, He reminds us that when we open our mouths He will fill them. If you lack confidence, God can make you confident. If you lack knowledge, He can give you knowledge. What excuses have you been making?

Today I want you to know that God can make up for where you are lacking. He is well capable of bridging that gap. Do not be afraid. He who has called you will ensure you complete your assignment. All He is asking from you is your yes. He has already laid out the blueprints. The beauty is that you will not even need to figure it all out. All you need to do is to submit to Him and He will guide you every step of the way.

The God in you is greater than the giant that you call your assignment.

Conclusion

Which of these 4 hurdles is the most difficult for you to overcome before embarking on your assignment? What lie has held you back from fulfilling your assignment? Today I want to charge you to go anyway. It does not matter how scared you are. Go anyway. Like Gideon God wants you to go in the strength you have. Gideon a wheat thresher was used by God to deliver the Israelites from the Midianites. God instilled fear in the enemy’s camp even before Gideon embarked on his assignment.

As you go, God will bring you success. Remember success and victory are found on the other side of your fear. Think about all the people you admire. Do you know they were scared when they were starting? And it was because they did it scared and showed up even when they did not want to that they experienced success. As we continue with the year, I want to encourage you to always keep in mind these 4 hurdles you need to overcome before embarking on your assignment.

God is with you therefore you will not fail. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. When God is on your side, He will equip you to accomplish the very thing He called you to do. Submit to Him, always remain humble, and pure, and have a teachable heart. He is waiting for your yes. Are you ready to jump into the deep end? If you say yes, you will embark on one of the most exciting adventures. And you will realize that through your yes, you will become the very person you always admired.