Most of us have something that we want to do. For some of us it is a professional goal that we want to achieve. For others it is a hobby that we would like to turn into our full-time employment. For a few of us it is dropping out of the “rat race” and moving to the country where we can grow our own vegetables and live a simpler life.
Whatever we envision for our futures, we usually have the ability to make that thing happen—or at least some version of that thing happen. The problem is that life is filled with detours, and when we find ourselves on a winding, unpaved road, rather than continuing on, we often turn around and go back to where we started.
Moses is a wonderful example of a man whose life was filled with detours. Even before he was born God had decided that he was going to lead the children of Israel out of slavery. However, it took eighty years and several detours to prepare Moses for that work.
Shortly before Moses’ birth Pharaoh ordered that all of the Hebrew male children be thrown into the Nile River as soon as they were born. Moses mother hid him at home for three months, but when she could no longer hide him, she made him a little ark from papyrus reeds waterproofed with tar and set him on the Nile River. This was the same river where all the other baby boys his age had perished, but Moses’ mother trusted that God had a plan for her son.
When Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the river to bathe, she spied the little ark among the reeds and told her maids to bring it to her. Opening it, she found the baby inside, and her heart was touched—so much so that she adopted him.
Moses’ second detour began when he was forty years old. The Bible makes it clear that from the beginning Moses knew that he was a Hebrew and that he had frequent contact with his fellow Hebrews. One day when he was visiting his brethren, he killed an Egyptian who was mistreating a Hebrew. To avoid execution, he ran away into the land of Midian where he spent the next forty years tending sheep and learning desert survival.
When Moses was eighty years old, he encountered his third detour. God told him to return to Egypt and deliver the Hebrews from their bondage. Why Moses? Why did it take so long? Apparently there were plenty of Hebrew men in Egypt—the Bible says that approximately 600,000 men left in the Exodus. If God wanted Moses to lead the Hebrews, wouldn’t it have been simpler to allow him to live among his own brethren and then, while he was still young, to call him to deliver his people? If for some reason God wanted Moses to be raised in Pharaoh’s palace, wouldn’t it have been simpler to have him deliver the Hebrews at age forty when he took it upon himself to protect his Hebrew brother from the Egyptian’s abuse?
The truth is that each detour in Moses’ life signaled another time of preparation for the work that God had for him. Because he was raised in the palace, he was not intimidated by the Pharaoh or his advisers and soothsayers. Because he had spent forty years in the harsh conditions of the desert, he knew how to live in the wilderness. Because he had tended sheep, he knew how to be a shepherd who guarded the flock—whether they consisted of the white, woolly, four-legged variety or the stubborn complaining two legged kind known as the children of Israel.
Clearly, Moses knew at an early age that he was supposed to deliver the Hebrews from bondage, but he certainly had to take the round-about way of doing it! God was preparing him for a monumental task, and each detour played a key role in that preparation.
The next time you find yourself on a winding unpaved road, learn all that you can from the experience. Detours are not much fun, but they are necessary. They are God’s way of preparing you to succeed when you finally get to where you want to be.
For books by Joyce Swann visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/.
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