Several years ago, Chicago Cubs relief pitcher Bob Patterson described one of his pitches, which the Cincinnati Reds' Barry Larkin hit for a game-winning home run: “It was a cross between a screwball and a change-up. It was a screw-up.” (Wall Street Journal, 7/9/96; Leadership, Vol. 17, no.3; www.Preaching Today.com)
That describes our lives sometimes, but what do we do when we screw-up? What do we do when we fail? What do we do when life doesn’t go as we planned?
Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Exodus 2, Exodus 2, where we see what Moses did after he failed miserably.
Exodus 2:1-10 Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” “Yes, go,” she answered. And the girl went and got the baby’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.” (NIV)
Moses grew up a very privileged individual. Certainly, these were difficult days for the Hebrews, but Moses had a birth mother who had a strong faith in God.
Hebrews 11:23 says, “By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.” (NIV)
Then, when they could hide him no more, they put him in a basket and placed it in the Nile River. I agree with Warren Wiersbe who said, “It took real faith to put the child in the river, the very place where the young boys were being destroyed!” (Warren Wiersbe, Expository Outlines on the Old Testament)
To be sure, Moses’ mother was not stupid in her faith. She obeyed the letter of the law which demanded that every Hebrew boy be thrown into the Nile River (Exodus 1:22), but she did everything she could do to insure the child’s safety. She lined the basket with tar and pitch so it would float. She put it among the reeds so it wouldn’t be carried away by the current, and she put it in a place where she knew Pharaoh’s daughter would discover it.
You see, not everybody bathed in the Nile River. That’s because the Nile was worshipped as a god itself, considered a sacred river by the Egyptians, so only the very privileged could bathe in the Nile. I’m sure Moses’ mother knew the exact spot where Pharaoh’s daughter came to bathe on a regular basis, so she had her daughter put Moses’ basket right near that spot.
But Moses’ mother had no idea what Pharaoh’s daughter would do with that Hebrew baby boy. She could have thrown the boy in the river as her father had ordered, but instead God touched her heart with the baby’s tears, and she adopted Moses as her own.
Imagine what went through Moses’ mother’s heart when she turned her just weaned child over to Pharaoh’s daughter. Pharaoh’s daughter was a stranger, a foreigner, living in an anti-Semitic home, whose father was pursuing genocide, trying to wipe out the Hebrew race.
Moses’ mother had to feel like Tracinda Foxe when she dropped her one-month old baby, Eric, from a third story window to save him from a fire in their apartment. In December of 2005, Foxe's apartment building in the Bronx caught on fire. With flames quickly engulfing her third floor bedroom, Tracinda leaned out the window with her baby. A group of onlookers had gathered some 30 feet below her open window and watched with growing concern as smoke billowed around the mother and her baby.
Finally, with all other options exhausted, Tracinda let go (video, www.metacafe.com/watch/53834/amazing_baby_catch). The infant tumbled three stories down into the waiting arms of Felix Vazquez, a Housing Authority employee and catcher on a local baseball team. Vazquez, trained as a lifeguard, performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the baby, which saved its life.
Moments later, Tracinda was rescued from her apartment by firefighters, and was reunited with her child. Neither was seriously injured. Later, when someone asked her about the painful decision to drop her baby from the window, Tracinda said: “I prayed that someone would catch him and save his life… I said, ‘God, please save my son.’” (Catherine Donaldson-Evans, “The Good News of 2005,” Foxnews.com, 12-30-05; www. PreachingToday.com)
I’m sure Moses’s mother felt the same way, dropping her little boy into the arms of Pharaoh’s daughter, praying that God would save his life!
Moses had a birth mother who had a strong faith in God, and he had an adopted mother who was very powerful. Pharaoh’s daughter, here, is none other than the great Hatshepsut, who later became ruler of all Egypt. When Pharaoh died, his son took over, but he died shortly thereafter and the next son in line was too young to rule. That’s when Hatshepsut stepped in; and for more than 20 years, she led Egypt into a time of tremendous prosperity. She ruled with a brilliance that far outshone any of her predecessors, and she was the one who insured that Moses had the best training Egypt could offer, no doubt grooming him to be her successor.
Acts 7:22 says, “Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” (NIV). Moses probably went to school at the Temple of the Sun where all the privileged boys went. Archeologists and historians have called it “the Oxford of the Ancient World.” There, he would have learned hieroglyphics, science, medicine, astronomy, chemistry, theology, philosophy, and law. He would have studied the great literature of his day and dabbled in the arts – sculpture, music and painting. More than that, Moses would have also studied the battles and combat strategies of that nation’s proud military history… (Chuck Swindoll, Moses, pp.38-39)
As a result, Acts 7 says he became “powerful in speech and action” (Acts 7:22). Josephus, a First Century Jewish historian tells us that after Moses grew up, he led the Egyptian army to a great victory over the Ethiopians who had invaded Egypt. Previously, the Egyptian army had fled before the Ethiopians, but when Moses took over as general, the Egyptians experienced one victory after another. They were able to rout the Ethiopians, overthrow their cities and “indeed (as Josephus says) made a great slaughter of these Ethiopians.” (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book II, Chapter X)
Moses had become a bold military strategist, wise in worldly matters, and a competent leader. He was a self-made man, or so he thought, and that’s clearly evident as he begins to take on another mission.
After Moses delivers the Egyptians from the Ethiopians, he tries to deliver his own people, the Hebrews, from the Egyptians. Verse 11 “One day, after Moses had grown up” – Acts 7 says Moses was 40 years old at this time.
Exodus 2:11-15 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. Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 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?” 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.” When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. (NIV)
This was a low point, in fact THE low point in Moses’ life. He had failed in his mission to deliver his own people. Now, the Egyptians want him dead and his own people don’t want him at all.
G. K. Chesterton once said, “There is nothing that fails like success.” And that’s exactly what happened to Moses. He trusted his past success to carry him to future success. Verse 12 says he glanced “this way and that.” He looked to the left and he looked to the right, but he failed to look up. Moses undertook this mission on his own without seeking God’s help or guidance. As a result, he failed miserably.
I like the way Chuck Swindoll put it in his book on Moses: “Finding himself highly qualified to be completely useless, Moses tucked up his royal robes and ran like a scared coyote (Chuck Swindoll, Moses, p.48). Now, according to Acts 7, Moses will be stuck in the Midian wilderness for another 40 years where the only thing he can lead is a bunch of dumb sheep.
But God was at work behind the scenes. God was at work preparing Moses to lead a great nation, not the nation of Egypt as his adopted mother had hoped, but the nation of Israel, which was far beyond his birth mother’s hopes and dreams.
God let him grow up in a palace for 40 years to teach him the fine points of governing a great nation. Then God let him wander in the wilderness for another 40 years to teach him how to lead that great nation to depend on God.
As Moses himself writes about all this towards the end of his own life, I’m sure he marveled at all God did for him during these years. I’m sure he marveled at his upbringing in the palace. And I’m sure he marveled at the lessons he learned in the wilderness.
You see, Moses would come to the point where he was able to appreciate his past. Moses had failed greatly, but God brought him through that failure and turned him into an even greater leader than he could have ever been on his own.
Eventually, Moses would come to appreciate all that, and this is exactly what we must do if we’re going to rebound from failure and turn it into a springboard to success. Like Moses, we must learn to…
APPRECIATE THE PAST.
We must learn to see our past as GOD’s preparation for the future. We must grow to the point where we can value the lessons God has taught us through our past experiences, good or bad. We must mature enough to let the past inform us without defining us or controlling us.
Just a few years ago, Seo Sang-moon finally passed his driver’s license exam… on his 272nd attempt. Seo, at the time, was nearly 70 years old. He was from a rural area of South Korea and had no chance to pass a written exam because he was illiterate. So he took the oral exams as often as he could in order to learn the rules of the road. Finally, after spending nearly $1,000 in fees, he reached his goal.
All that was left for Seo to do was pass the road test. He admitted that that might be difficult, but said, “After trying 271 times to pass the oral exam, what do I have to be afraid of?” (Daily News, www.Yahoo.com, 4-15-05; www.PreachingToday. com)
I love that man’s attitude! He wasn’t going to let his past failures control his future. He learned from them, but he didn’t let them define him, and that’s the only way we can move on from our failures.
We cannot let our past failures discourage us. On the other hand, we cannot let our past success give us a false sense of security and think it guarantees future success. Instead, we must learn from both our successes and failures so we can accomplish what God wants in His time and in His way.
What do you do when you fail? 1st, like Moses, appreciate the past. Then 2nd…
BE FAITHFUL IN THE PRESENT.
Be dependable in the little things that are put before you. Be reliable to carry out the lesser tasks God gives you to do. That’s what Moses did.
Exodus 2:16-17 Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock. (NIV)
Moses had wanted to deliver a nation from oppression. Here, God gives him the opportunity to deliver seven girls. And that’s exactly what Moses does. He defends 7 girls against a bunch of bullies, and then he goes the extra mile to water their flocks.
Exodus 2:18-22 When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?” They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.” “And where is he?” he asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.” Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become an alien in a foreign land.” (NIV)
Gershom means “alien” or “migrant.” And that’s exactly what this great prince of Egypt had become – a migrant in a foreign land where he had no status.
Even so, Moses faithfully completed the little tasks God gave him to do. He protected seven girls, watered their sheep, and later married one of them. Chuck Swindoll says, “Moses, who would have been in line to marry an exotic Cleopatra-type beauty back in Egypt, settled down with a shepherdess” (Chuck Swindoll, Moses, p.66)
Despite his failure to accomplish the big things he wanted to do, Moses remained faithful to the little things God gave him to do, and that’s exactly what we must do if we want to rebound from failure.
Matthew Henry writes, “When we cannot do the good we would, we must be ready to do the good we can. And he that is faithful in a little shall be entrusted with more.” (Matthew Henry, A Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol.1, p.279)
Or as Oswald Avery once put it: “Whenever you fall, pick up something.” (Oswald Avery, Christian Reader, Vol. 32, no. 4)
Maybe you can’t preach to thousands right now, but you can teach a Sunday School class. Maybe you can’t change the world with your business, but you can make a customer’s life a little better tomorrow. Maybe you can’t lead multitudes to a better life, but you can influence your children or grandchildren. Just be faithful in the little things God gives you to do. Then, just like He did for Moses, God may entrust you with greater responsibility in the future.
Henri Dunant was a wealthy 19th century Swiss banker when the Swiss government sent him to Paris to work on a business deal with Napoleon. When he got to Paris, they told him that Napoleon was off fighting a war against the Austrians in Solferino, Italy. So Dunant got back into his carriage and set his horses galloping down to the battlefront. He got there just in time to hear the bugles blast and see the thundering charge of Napoleon's troops. Dunant had never before witnessed the ghastly carnage of war. He watched in horror as cannonballs tore through human flesh, and acres of land became heaped with disfigured and dying men. Henry Dunant was so devastated that he remained at the front for weeks helping doctors tend to the wounded in churches and nearby farmhouses.
After his return to Switzerland, Dunant continued to be haunted by the images of war he had seen in Italy. He could not keep his mind on banking and became so distracted that he lost all his wealth. Even so, he had a sense that God was at work behind the scenes. Later, he wrote of this time in his life and said, “I was aware of an intuition, vague and yet profound, that [this was] God's Will; it seemed to me that I had [something] to accomplish… as a sacred duty and that it was destined to have fruits of infinite consequence for mankind.”
And that’s exactly what happened. Out of his depression and failure – after following the wrong road to Italy – Henri Dunant founded the Red Cross, which has since saved millions and millions of lives and given relief to countless victims of war and disaster over the years. Later, Henry Dunant received the first Nobel Peace Prize for establishing this organization. (Victor D. Pentz, from the sermon “A Hobo's Heart: How Wrong Roads Often Lead to the Right Places;” www.PreachingToday.com)
It’s like Matthew Henry said, “When we cannot do the good we would, we must be ready to do the good we can.”
What do you do when you fail? 1st, like Moses, appreciate the past. 2nd, be faithful in the present. And 3rd…
TRUST GOD FOR THE FUTURE.
Depend on the Lord to work things out. Wait patiently for God to act in His time and in His way. That’s what Moses did.
Exodus 2:23-25 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. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.
(NIV)
Notice, Moses didn’t rush back and try to save the Israelites. Instead, he simply rested and relied upon God. He waited on the Lord, who was just as concerned, if not more so, than Moses was.
And that’s what we must do if we want to rebound from failure. We must rest and rely on God. Isaiah 40:31 says, “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” (ESV)
Don’t rush ahead of the Lord. Don’t push yourself and your agenda on people. Just wait patiently for the Lord to act, because He really cares. In fact He cares even more than you do.
I’m sure when Jesus hung there on the cross, His followers thought they had just wasted the last three and a half years of their lives following Him. They no doubt thought that they had just made the biggest mistake of their lives. That was Friday. What they didn’t understand was that Sunday was coming. There was a resurrection just a few days ahead, and the cross was all a part of God’s plan to save the world. All they had to do was trust God. All they had to do was wait on Him, and He would demonstrate his power in a way they couldn’t even imagine.
So you too, when you think you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life, trust God to use that very thing to demonstrate His power in His time. Don’t force it. Just wait on Him.
Rudy is the true story of a young man with a big dream to attend Notre Dame and play football for the Fighting Irish. The problem was he was small and dyslexic. His height gave him a next to nothing chance that he would ever make the team, and his dyslexia kept him from getting good grades in high school, which made it almost impossible for him to be accepted by the prestigious university in the first place.
Even so, Rudy refused to give up. He took a Greyhound bus into South Bend, Indiana, and met Father Cavanaugh, a priest who agreed to get him into a semester of Holy Cross Junior College. If his grades were good enough there, perhaps Notre Dame might consider letting him in.
But three semesters and three rejection letters later, Rudy is devastated and hopeless, despite a dramatic improvement in his grades. He has done everything he can to get into Notre Dame, but it hasn’t been enough. So he goes back to the chapel where he first met Father Cavanaugh.
“Maybe I haven't prayed enough,” Rudy says, almost frantic.
Father Cavanaugh answers with kind, narrow eyes, “I'm sure that's not the problem. Praying is something we do in our time. The answers come in God's time.”
Rudy isn't satisfied. There has to be something else he can do. “Have I done everything I possibly can? Can you help me?”
To which Father Cavanaugh's says, “Son, in 35 years of religious studies, I've come up with only two hard, incontrovertible facts: There is a God, and I'm not Him.” (Rudy, Tristar, 1993, directed by David Anspaugh, DVD track 17, 01:02:47 – 01:03:41; www.PreachingToday.com)
My dear friends, that’s a lesson we all need to learn: There is a God in heaven who really cares, but you and are NOT Him. He operates on His own time in His own way, and when we try to take control as if we were God, we only make a royal mess of things.
So just wait on Him. Let Him be God even in your situation, and trust Him to accomplish His good will in your life. You trusted Him to save you from your sins. Now, trust Him to use you in His time and in His way for His glory.
What do you do when you have failed? Appreciate the past. Stay faithful in the present. But most of all trust God for the future.
For as Rodney Reeves says, “God…delights in showing up in the midst of loss – the resurrection of Christ proves it. God turns losing into gain, death into life, sorrow into joy, weakness into strength, futility into glory.” (Rodney Reeves, Spirituality According to Paul, Intervarsity Academic, 2011, pp.188-189; www.PreachingToday.com)
Just trust Him to do it in your life, as well.
