Beginning Again

“So now, go. I am sending you…” Exodus 3:10 NIV

---

Imagine with me for a moment.

You are no longer a young man full of dreams and hopes, with grand aspirations. No. Now your steps are slower. Your ways are set.

You once had dreams, but they are now only wispy memories you have set on a shelf.

Now each of your days is wrapped in the sameness of the predictable ordinary.

You look to the horizon, to your very small flock of sheep.

Leaning on your shepherds staff, you heave a wistful sigh, as your mind drifts back to that young man in the Egyptian royal court; brave, strong, so full of himself.

“Ah, well…” you whisper, and you sigh again.

The Commission

Ah, well, indeed–for God is listening. Watching. Smiling.

You stumble along, believing in only what is now; what you can see; and it isn’t much.

You don’t blame anyone but yourself. No. It was your doing that was your, undoing.

All your disappointment is in yourself, “Why couldn’t you see then, what is so clear to you now?”

Why couldn’t you have…

You don’t finish that thought, because suddenly, you see a bush a bit beyond. And there is a Voice, calling your name… “Moses. Moses…”

God speaks…

Can you see him? This disappointed man? Encountering God in the middle of that barren place?

And, what about you?

Are you in a wilderness of disappointed dreams?

I’ve been there.

It’s the very last place you expect to encounter The God of the Universe, speaking to you; calling your name; sending you back.

Who, me?

I think I “get” Moses now, today, more than I did when I was younger.

Now that I am almost seventy-four, and my gait is slower, with a slight limp.

When I was younger, I too, was full of dreams… and myself.

I was so impatient.

Now? Now I know about that shelf where dreams gather dust.

Now I know, how foolish an unexpected commission from God would be, to carry out any of those dreams today?

Makes me laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Off the shelf

If you have placed yourself and your dreams on a shelf?

If you see yourself as “disqualified,” as Moses surely must have thought of himself? If life has stomped your hopes until they no longer live?

Take heart in the story of Moses.

God does not forget.

(Though we might sometimes wish He would.)

His plans for you cannot be hindered, or held back.

Not once has His plan changed.

He has a perfect timing and His hand cannot be stopped when the time has come for you to answer His call and go.

Omnipotent Power

God’s plan cannot be derailed once His time has arrived.

This world, with all of its chaos and turmoil, is no match for God!

Knowing that, can I ask you, “Is God perhaps whispering to your heart?”

Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness…isaiah 50:2 KJV

If God speaks–what will you answer?

Will you go?

---