The LORD, compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness
God is faithful
Imagine you are a prince of a kingdom that is a superpower. You are lying on a hammock by the seaside, attended by your entourage that cater for your every need and want, popular in speech and action, and loved by the queen, at the prime of your age, at the peak of your power, healthy and strong. What more could you want? Rather, what would cause you to jeopardize such a privilege?
This is not a story of greed or ingratitude but the deep cry for a higher calling than being a mighty, popular and beloved prince. One day the prince left the seaside, hammock, and the party to see slaves.
He saw how his people were living. They were beaten while working hard, in exile, held hostage, having no land called home. The prince saw a slave driver beating a slave, and he could not bear but strike the culprit dead.
When the news came to the pharaoh, king of Egypt, that the prince killed an Egyptian for the sake of a slave, the king wanted to kill him, so the prince ran to save his life to the most inhospitable desert in the world, the Arab desert.
He could have enjoyed life as a prince, but he chose to suffer with those who were suffering and protested against injustice rather than profited from it. In the process, he forsook all to be on the right side rather than being in the wrong and remaining a prince. He lived in the desert as a shepherd for forty years until he had nearly forgotten his life as a prince. However, God is faithful and wouldn't allow any good sacrifices to go unnoticed and every sincere just cause to be forgotten.
After forty years, God came to Moses and asked him to accomplish what he had tried to do forty years ago– to free his slaves people. Moses gave God several excuses for why he shouldn't and couldn't do it. I do not blame him; from prince to shepherd, it was a high fall that could crush anyone’s self-esteem. Since God is sympathetic and helps those with low self-esteem, He did not take no for answer, but raised His incentives after every excuse Moses made. Faced with the persistent and Almighty God Moses relented.
The rest is history. Moses would go to Egypt and punish the whole empire by himself with the power of God and free millions of slaves and lead them out of Egypt, parting the Red Sea in half, drowning the army that chased them.
God was faithful to Moses. Although Moses forfeited his position, fame, riches, glory and even life for the good of the oppressed, God paid him back many times more than what he had in the first place. His fame and renown would have been buried under the rubble of history like any other princes had he remained one. However, because his heart was in the right place and he left it all for the sake of the oppressed, God in his faithfulness repaid him immensely. Thus, his fame, glory and character still shine afresh in the hearts of billions who have read and heard his history for thousands of years, though he lived to be 120.
After Jesus, Moses is the most notable person in the Bible. That much was God repaid him for the glory he forfeited for the sake of the oppressed. We see this in the likes of Mandela.
Of course, it came with great personal pain and suffering. What must have Moses thought about his transition from the palace to the tent, from the garden to the desert, from a prince to a shepherd, from being taken care of to taking care of cattle for forty years? It must have been a humbling and pride-striping experience.
He was the meekest person in his generation. Meekness is God’s criteria for anyone who is to hold great power. “Blessed are the poor in spirit for the kingdom of God is theirs”, said Jesus. Even though he endured much for so many years he was a better person because of it. Though suffering is not designed by God, He makes our experience work out for good. Moses, a feisty man, became the most humble, forgiving, and reconciliatory person.
Like Moses, even if we forget our worth or let our dream and values dim, or discount ourselves for any reason, He will not short-change us. He is always holding us to our noble aspirations, and values.
The more Moses thought himself unworthy to the task, the more God increased power and authority available to him. There is no one in the Bible that God used to do greater things as Moses. He parted the sea and, led hundreds of thousands slaves to freedom. God spoke to the prophets in dreams and visions but to Moses He spoke face to face, as man does to his friend. After talking to God for forty days, Moses face so shone that the Israelites were afraid to look at him. He had to cover his face when he spoke to them.
Comments
Post a Comment