Exodus 4: 1-4
4 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’?”
2 Then the Lord asked him, “What is that in your hand?”
“A shepherd’s staff,” Moses replied.
3 “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.
4 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.
When Moses answered the Lord's question with, "A shepherd's staff," God caused that staff to become a very dangerous snake. How do I know it was dangerous? Moses jumped back, away from it. Moses jumped back because he was afraid of the snake. Then the Lord says, "Reach out and grab its tail."
There are a couple of things to notice. One is obvious. Moses must have thought God was crazy to tell him to grab that asp by the tail! Most people who deal with snakes know better than to grab one by its tail. It'll turn around and bite you. It's no easy task but the safest thing would be to try to grab it by the back of its head.
The other thing to notice is that God didn't tell Moses what would happen when he grabbed it by its tail. In my mind I am seeing Moses look at that burning bush with his jaw on the ground, "You want me to do WHAT?"
But he did it, and the asp became a staff again.
What does this story tell us?
First it tells us that God wants us to stop looking at things from the human perspective and start looking at things from His point of view. Moses was right to be afraid of the snake, but he knew to trust God more than to be afraid.
God told Isaiah in Isaiah 8:11 not to think like everyone else does. He wants to do great things for those people who trust in Him. Look what He did for Moses. Look what He did for Elijah. Look what He did when He walked the earth and then tells us in John 14:12-13 that we would do greater things than He did if we ask in His name, "so that the Father may be glorified in the Son." Wow! And Jesus is the Son of God! If that doesn't get us excited, I don't know what will!
The other thing I see in this story is that God told Moses to pick the asp up by the tail, but didn't tell him it would turn to a staff again.
What this tells me is that the Lord wants us to trust Him no matter how crazy it looks to us or to anyone else. Nothing is impossible with God. The angel told Zechariah and Mary that and then Jesus Himself repeated those words.
God is Almighty. He is under no laws: not of time, physics, gravity or any other law anyone else is under. When He tells us to grab the snake by the tail, we can be sure He's going to do miraculous things for us.