A Sovereign Will Unfolds in Time

Now it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens. And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren.

So he looked this way and that way, and when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. And when he went out the second day, behold, two Hebrew men were fighting, and he said to the one who did the wrong, "Why are you striking your companion?" Then he said, "Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" So Moses feared and said, "Surely this thing is known!" When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian. Exodus 2:11-15a NKJV.

 

How many times had Moses witnessed his brethren being oppressed before he stood up in defense of justice? Yet the very act of courage on his part was met with ignorance, belittling and defensiveness of the very people he was standing up for. What a letdown it must have been for Moses. To stand up for what was right, only to be dealt what was wrong. He had the heart to save but the very people whom he wanted to save weren't ready to be saved, nor did they have their eyes and hearts turn towards what was right.

 

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, "I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn." So when the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." Exodus 3:1-4 NKJV.

 

What made Moses respond so readily to a voice coming out of a burning bush? Had he been expecting something extraordinary? Perhaps he had been longing to hear the voice of God.

 

Then He said, "Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground." Moreover He said, "I am the God of your father - the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. And the LORD said, "I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. "So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perrizites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.

 

Moses was not the only one who had wanted to deliver the Israelites out of Egyptian oppression.

 

"Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. "Come now, therefore, and I will send you to the Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt." But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?" Exodus 3:5-11 NKJV. Except now, Moses will do it God's way.

 

Forty years would have passed from the time he left the courts of Egypt as a wanted man, to his encounter with God in the back of a desert. He had long passed the peak of his life and instead of holding office in the courts of Egypt; he was holding the staff of a shepherd, tending to flocks that were not his own. He was raised in grandeur and gone through an education and training fit for a king. Yet now, he had nothing and was nowhere as a nobody. How many nights had he spent staring at the stars wondering how different his life could have been? Wondering if God had forgotten about him? Wondering if he was any good? It was at that moment that God showed up to restore to Moses his identity, his destiny and his worth.

 

What had seemed like a failure and a case of forgotten prince in the eyes of man; found favour, affirmation and restoration in the eyes of God. God created Moses and placed in him a heart of righteousness, a heart for justice. Despite what Moses went through, God worked things out for the good of Moses and the Israelites in His time, and brought Moses to the fullness of who He had created him to be.

 

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