Life Of Moses: Part 2 Series

How often doesn’t it happen when the gifts, the circumstance, and the situation all seemed to be lined up. You’re prepared, you’re ready, but what you’re aiming for just doesn’t happen. Take a young, married couple. They’ve followed God’s plan up to this point in that they’re married, they’ve tried to make their home safe, secure their finances, and are ready to have a baby. But they just can’t seem to get pregnant. Or what about that single person. They’ve worked at making themselves available and attractive and want to find someone to settle down with and get married. But they just can’t seem to find that person. Or, what about the person looking to retire. They’ve been planning their whole life for retirement, saving wisely, putting away a chunk of every paycheck. But then shortly before they were going to retire, the stock market messes up their account. And now they’re going to have to work a few more years before they can afford retirement.

Situations like we’ve been talking about aren’t just things you read about in novels or see in movies. And they’re not things that just happen once to you. What I was just talking about was life. This is how life is. We plan, we do our best, we pray, we ask for God’s blessings, and he tells us not yet. Or maybe even sometimes his answer is a solid “no.” You’re used to this. And yet, every time God answers this way for you, it still hurts. Just because it’s God, who is good in every way, and it’s he who gives you that answer, doesn’t mean that it’s impossible for you not to be disappointed. It’s very possible that God’s answers leave you in pain.

You are not unique in this, though. Here we have Moses. A man who was prepared. A man who was gifted. And a man who had thought things out, at least to a point. Moses thought that now was the time that God would use him to save his people. Acts 7 tells us that. And why not? No longer were the Israelites treated as the friendly neighbors to the north. They had instead become a thorn in the side of Pharaoh, a potential enemy. And so they were treated with harsh conditions, having murder and slavery forced down upon them. Why would this not be the time to act?

And according to human perspective, it seemed right too. Moses wasn’t just any Israelite. This was a man who was extremely gifted. We’re going to see just how gifted he was this summer. He was also a man of great faith, so great that he would eventually converse with God for the sake of God’s people. On top of this, Moses was Pharaoh’s grandson. He would have been schooled in the best ways. He would’ve learned leadership by example. He would’ve been taught by the wisest of people.

But what is God’s answer to Moses? “Not yet. It’s not yet time for you to lead my Israelites. Instead, I’m going to place you in the middle of nowhere, in the wilderness, where you will become a shepherd for 40 years.” Four decades. Half the average lifespan. Why would God have wasted such a talented man like this? Why allow his people to suffer for 40 more years? It’s not as if he didn’t know about them or that he didn’t care. The last verses tell us so: During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. 24 God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. 25 So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

And yet, this was not God being inactive, and it was not God wasting an opportunity. Moses needed this. He needed these 40 years as a shepherd. And since Moses would eventually be that leader of the Israelites, they in turn needed for Moses to shepherd these 40 years too. This was for their good too.

Just look at why this was good. How often doesn’t God compare us as people to sheep. We’re inattentive, we’re stubborn, we’re greedy, we’re stupid, we’re defenseless, we need a shepherd. All of these things Moses would come to learn very well about sheep as he shepherded for 40 years. So then when he would eventually become Israel’s leader, his shepherding understanding would’ve come in handy.

But, there was another reason Moses needed this time. Moses was a man of action. He was a leader. We see that in the situation by the well. Moses…went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. 16 Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. 17 Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock. But, Moses didn’t always use these gifts well. He tried, and his motivation may have been in at least somewhat the right place, but he still sinned. And abused those gifts. Just before this situation at the well, this happened: One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?” 14 The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.”