Focal Passage: Exodus 2:11-22; 3:5-10
Our lives are a mixture of tragedies and triumphs. We are, to use a Latin phrase, “Simul Justus et Peccator,” — simultaneously saint and sinner. Moses’s life was a case in point. He was a chosen and gifted leader; and he could be a hothead at times. Through it all God used Moses to lead His people to the doorstep of the Promised Land. God crafted the self-inflicted interruptions in Moses’s life into a tapestry of deliverance.
Unintended consequences, Exodus 2:11-15
Raised with the elite education and privileges of Pharoah’s house, yet with the spiritual training of his Hebrew mother, Moses was troubled by Egypt’s oppression of his kinsman. While observing the labor camps of the Israelites one day he took things into his own hands, killing an Egyptian guard who was mistreating an Israelite slave. Thinking his deed had gone unnoticed, Moses was shocked to hear that he had been “found out.” He made his escape to Midian.
Kevin Shrum
Yet, it would be in Midian — a desert land — where he would meet God, receive his highest calling, and have his life’s mission clarified. He would meet and marry Zipporah. He would develop a friendship with Raul (Jethro) his father-in-law, a friendship that would benefit him in future leadership decisions (Ex. 18).
In other words, God took what Moses intended for evil and made it for good. Moses discovered the truth we who love God in Christ must learn. The axiom goes something like this — has it ever occurred to us that NOTHING has ever occurred to God? God is not befuddled or caught off guard in heaven, scratching His head trying to stay one step ahead of our ill-conceived choices.
From Moses’s side of the equation his “life on the run” was a self-inflicted interruption; from God’s side of the equation, it was in God’s plan all along. This is the mystery of God’s gracious providence. Thank God He is sovereign even over our sin.
Intended unintended consequences, Exodus 3:5-10
Having attended, to use a metaphor, the University of Egypt and the Hebrew University taught by his godly mother, Moses would now attend God’s University of Humility in the desert. God would meet Moses in a fiery bush calling for him to meet a God who is “holy other.” Moses was commanded to take off his shoes (a sign of humility) and to stand alone before a holy God. Why? Because God was ready to deliver His people from Egyptian bondage and He planned to use Moses to lead out in the process.
Now it all made sense. A series of interruptions in Moses’ life merged into the perfect plan of God, i.e. how he was set afloat in the Nile only to be raised in Pharoah’s house; how being raised in Pharoah’s house prepared him for future confrontations with this ancient superpower; how his murderous anger had sent him into the wilderness to be humbled and prepared for the future God had for him; and, how that future would lead to the deliverance of God’s people.
There is no excuse or rationale for sin. Yet, we serve a God who has enveloped all the sinful, self-imposed interruptions of our lives into a tapestry of redemption and deliverance if we will humble ourselves before God. If so, deliverance is possible, even assured. If not, our sinful, self-imposed interruptions will be just that — interruptions that have no redemptive possibilities. B&R
