City Moses and Desert Moses

Does writing about a proverbial desert experience seem trite? What if it's only coincidental that one of the locations in the story happens to be a desert?

I was struck by so many life lesson scenarios in the life of Moses as I read the familiar story this week that I had to pause and dig into at least one. There may be more, I should warn you.

As you may recall from the book of Exodus, Moses had a life split into three parts, each part lasting approximately forty years. The first forty were as a Prince of Egypt (we've all seen the movie...), the second forty were as a shepherd for his father-in-law in the Midian desert, and the last forty years he spent leading a million or so cranky Hebrews out of Egypt and into the land God had promised. There you go. Exodus in a nutshell.

What's interesting is that the first forty years of Moses' life are covered in Chapters 1 and 2, the next forty in chapters 2-4, and the last forty years are stretched out between the last 36 chapters of Exodus, plus the entire books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. I guess those are the ones we're meant to pay close attention to.

But there is something significant in the experiences that get merely a brief summary in the beginning of "the real story". Where Moses came from. His first eighty years of life were a very long preparation period for the history-altering later years in that God used his experiences as a royal prince in a fertile land and as a family desert shepherd to launch him into those final challenging years as the leader of God's chosen people.

After a dramatic discovery as a baby in a basket by Pharaoh's daughter, Moses was raised as a rich and privileged prince in an area of Egypt that was green and lush and filled with all the trappings of a powerful kingdom. According to ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, Moses' adoptive grandfather, the Pharaoh, would have been considered to hold absolute power over a vast empire, but he would have also shared deity with a host of Egyptian gods and goddesses, thereby serving as a sort of liaison between the human and divine worlds.

After murdering an Egyptian in a fit of righteous anger, Moses flees this life of luxury and finds a safe haven with people in the desert of Midian, just south of the land that the Israelites eventually settled under the leadership of Joshua. But that's for another day.

In the desert of Midian, Moses spent a few decades with his father-in-law's sheep, in the desert, learning how to work for himself, learning about nature, spending some quality time in solitude. He may have thought about his previous life in Egypt, when he was surrounded by temples and verdant landscapes by the Nile. He was assimilating and going through a radical reidentification process. From clean-shaven prince to hirsute shepherd. From a life of leisure to a daily search for water and concern for safety.

Meanwhile, back in Egypt...

Exodus 2:23-25 tells us what was happening while Moses was adjusting to his new identity:

²³ 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.

The Israelites groaned and cried out. God heard them and was concerned about them.

While Moses was in the desert learning to be a new person, his people were straining under the weight of their servitude, and God was about to do something on a miraculous scale for their deliverance and His ultimate glory.

Now comes the part we can all relate to.

It's a little thing I like to call perspective.

There was no way for Moses or the Israelites in Egypt to know the exact timing that God was going to put His plan in motion. But God did. There is no way for us to know when our present circumstances will change and God will spring into action in a totally unexpected - or perhaps long awaited - fashion. But He does.

That's what sovereign means. That God is always aware of and in control of His plans and purposes for His people.

Life not moving toward your dreams as fast as you'd like? Are you suffering under unbearable circumstances? God knows and He is working out His plan exactly as He designed it, whether we're aware of the moving parts or not.

Tragic phone call? Bad news from the doctor? Unexpected turn of events that has your head spinning? Just like God looked at the Israelites and was concerned, He knows your situation and He is concerned for you.

For all we know, we are sitting right where Moses and the Israelites were: separated from our ultimate destiny, but on the brink of participating in God's glorious plans. And the best thing we can do, over and over again, is cry out to Him and press into Him. Because when we get more of God, then the waiting is bearable. The suffering is tolerable. We can breathe through the tragic and be grounded amid the crashing waves. And what He's about to do is nothing short of amazing.

• Read Exodus 1 -2. Which scenes or characters do you relate to? How can you move closer to God in your situation?

• Read Psalm 18:1-6. Have you experienced what the psalmist has written about? Can you declare with assurance that the LORD is your rock, your fortress, and your deliverer? Verses 1-3 might be good ones to memorize.

• Read Romans 8:18-39. What comfort do you receive from these verses if you belong to Christ? How does it give you perspective in your current situation?