A human question, and its answer
Who Am I?
When God called Moses from the burning bush to deliver Israel out of Egypt, Moses answered with a question about himself. "Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?" It is the question of every person who feels too small for what they are asked to do.
“And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?”Exodus 3:11
Who asked, and why
Who asked, and why. Moses asked this at the burning bush in the wilderness of Horeb, forty years after fleeing Egypt as a fugitive (Exod 3:11). Once a prince of Pharaoh's house, he was now a shepherd tending his father in law's flock, an old man with a stammering tongue and a failed past behind him. He had tried once to help his people by his own hand, killed an Egyptian, and had to run for his life (Exod 2:11-15). So when God said, "I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt" (Exod 3:10), Moses recoiled. "Who am I?" was not false modesty. It was the honest cry of a man who knew his own weakness, his own history, and the impossible size of the task. He measured himself against Pharaoh and against Israel's misery and found himself far too small. It is the same question asked by anyone standing before a calling that dwarfs their strength, the question of the inadequate and the afraid.
The answer
The answer. God did not answer Moses by telling him how capable he was. He did not remind Moses of his royal upbringing or list his gifts. Instead God moved the ground of the question entirely. "Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain" (Exod 3:12). The answer to "Who am I?" was not a truth about Moses at all. It was a truth about God. The question of Moses's sufficiency was swallowed up in the promise of God's presence. Moses did not need to be enough, because the great I AM was going with him. God even gave a sign that could only be verified by obedience, for the confirmation would come after Moses acted, when Israel worshipped at the very mountain where he now stood. Faith would have to walk before it could see.
How Christ answers it
How Christ answers it. The presence God promised to Moses is given fully and finally in Jesus, whose name Immanuel means "God with us" (Matt 1:23). Where Moses asked "Who am I?" and heard "I will be with thee," the disciples were sent into all the world and heard, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Matt 28:20). Our adequacy has never rested on our own strength. "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God" (2 Cor 3:5). In Christ the fearful and the failed are sent out not on the merit of who they are but on the promise of who is with them. The question "Who am I?" finds its rest not in self-confidence but in the companionship of the risen Lord, who fills the weak with his own presence and power.
Questions people ask
Why did God not reassure Moses about his abilities?
Because the calling did not rest on Moses's abilities. God redirected the question from Moses's sufficiency to his own presence, promising "Certainly I will be with thee" (Exod 3:12). The strength for the task would be God's, not Moses's.
Is it wrong to feel inadequate for what God calls us to?
Feeling inadequate is not sin; Moses felt it, and God met him gently. The danger is letting inadequacy have the last word instead of God's promise to be with us.
How does this connect to Jesus?
The presence promised to Moses is embodied in Jesus, called Immanuel, God with us (Matt 1:23), who promised his followers, "I am with you alway" (Matt 28:20).