But Moses protested again, “What if they won’t believe me or listen to me? What if they say, ‘The Lord never appeared to you’?”

Then the Lord asked him, “What is that in your hand?”

“A shepherd’s staff,” Moses replied.

“Throw it down on the ground,” the Lord told him. So Moses threw down the staff, and it turned into a snake! Moses jumped back.

Then the Lord told him, “Reach out and grab its tail.” So Moses reached out and grabbed it, and it turned back into a shepherd’s staff in his hand.

“Perform this sign,” the Lord told him. “Then they will believe that the Lord, the God of their ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—really has appeared to you.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Now put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out again, his hand was white as snow with a severe skin disease. “Now put your hand back into your cloak,” the Lord said. So Moses put his hand back in, and when he took it out again, it was as healthy as the rest of his body.

The Lord said to Moses, “If they do not believe you and are not convinced by the first miraculous sign, they will be convinced by the second sign. And if they don’t believe you or listen to you even after these two signs, then take some water from the Nile River and pour it out on the dry ground. When you do, the water from the Nile will turn to blood on the ground.” (New Living Translation)

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Victor Frankl

Moses needed a big-time reframing of his situation.

Reframing is a way to help see a situation from a different perspective.

For example, Moses seemed to say to himself, “I’m going to do horrible at communicating to the Israelites that God appeared to me. They’re never going to believe me that I saw God in a burning bush!”

Instead, Moses could reframe the circumstance by saying, “I saw God. I know God is going to deliver the Israelites from their slavery to the Egyptians. I’ve been thinking about this in the backside of the desert for the past 40 years. And God’s got my back to use me here. So, I’ve got this. I can do this!”

But, of course, Moses didn’t say that. He needed a reframing from God that came from some powerful illustrations of the Lord’s ability to change things.

The big reframe for Moses was this: If God can change a staff into a snake, and then turn it back again; and if God can change my hand to be white with leprosy, then turn it back to a healthy hand; then God can certainly change the minds and hearts of the Israelites to accept that I am the Lord’s chosen deliverer from Egyptian bondage.

Whenever we put the onus on our abilities, or lack thereof, in order to alter a situation, then we are likely to have little confidence and a negative outlook.

Yet, when we can do some reframing, and rightly put the emphasis on God’s power and God’s promise, then our faith is placed rightly and we can step forward with courage, knowing it’s ultimately about God, not me.

Moses contends with God about facing the Israelites and convincing them he’s the deliverer. He sees himself as a tongue-tied hick who is only good for moving sheep around. And yet, all these millennia later, we now remember Moses as the one who boldly and repeatedly spoke to Pharaoh and moved an entire nation from Egypt to the Promised Land.

The Lord helped reframe the situation for Moses. Instead of a backward shepherd who was no good at talking, Moses was a magnificently resilient person who was able to reinvent his life multiple times and thrive in each new situation.

Moses survived a murderous decree as a baby, grew up in the Egyptian court, moved to Midian in a completely different existence, and then became perhaps the greatest leader in Jewish history. All of that is the very definition of resilience.

I am willing to surmise that you also need some reframing of your circumstance or even your life. After all, you’ve made it this far in life, and you’re still here. That means you have some significant things going for you. No matter the situation you find yourself in, it’s likely that a good reframe may be needed.

In his book, From Death Camp to Existentialism, Victor Frankl writes of being in a Nazi concentration camp for three years. Everything was taken from him. Frankl’s wife, family, and most of his fellow inmates died. Yet, he survived. And, after the war, he became one of the great psychological healers of our time.

Victor Frankl kept reframing his horrible situation and using his mind for worthy purposes. He survived by using his suffering to help others find hope, to know that no other person or nation can steal his mind from him. Frankl could continually choose his attitude and mindset, irrespective of the circumstances.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Victor Frankl

There are always opportunities to experience life more fully, to become a more integrated and whole person, and to transform what seems daunting into a chance to improve one’s life or the lives of others.

Reframing is neither denial nor positive thinking. Rather, it is an invitation in learning to trust God, in the presence, promise, and power of the divine.

We all discover, like Moses, that life can turn out very differently than we might expect. And along the way, we also find that we reinvent ourselves more than once; and that we are transformed by the seasons of life which we all must pass through.

When we learn to trust the Lord, evermore with each and every adverse situation, we are less likely to be controlled or overcome by moods of pessimism, hopelessness, or resentment. Our prevailing attitude becomes optimistic, as our faith is exercised and proven in the difficult trials of life.

Through his several encounters with God – and then with the people and with Pharaoh – Moses found resources he didn’t know he had. By experiencing a reframe of his life, Moses became the sort of person and leader that we are still talking about 3,500 years later.

So, don’t close your heart and mind to the adversity in front of you. That only leads to bitterness and unhappiness. Instead, open yourself to God and trust the spiritual reality and resources you possess.