In God's Training Program

From our Tuesday Morning Bible Study:

Moses was a man of superior ability. He was raised in the royal household of Pharaoh and had the best education in the most advanced nation in the world of his day. According to the Bible, he was "mighty in his words and deeds" (Acts 7:22). This is quite a statement when you live in the most powerful and sophisticated nation on earth. Josephus, in his history of the Jews, tells us that Moses was a great general in the Egyptian army. That is a great resume'.

This was not all; Moses realized even while in Egypt that God wanted to use him to deliver the Israelites from slavery. (Acts 7:25) Most of us thought that Moses was first called at the burning bush.

Now, to the natural thinking of just about all of us, Moses was the kind of man that God should choose as a leader. After all, he was talented. He was prominent. He was influential, being raised in the household of Pharaoh. This is a man that God could use...or so we think.

God thinks differently.

God's big problem with Moses was that there was still too much of Moses in him. Moses made an abortive attempt to lead the Israelites out of bondage. He killed an Egyptian in defense of a Hebrew slave. It seems that he thought this would prove to his people that God had chosen him as their deliverer. Undoubtedly, he had in mind some kind of military revolt against Pharaoh to free the people. For Moses to think that he could lead a revolt to free Hebrew slaves from the most powerful nation on earth shows a self-confidence that borders on arrogance.

It was not to be.

Moses' efforts resulted in dismal failure. The Israelites rejected him right away, probably from mistrust. When the Egyptians found out about his murder, they were out to get him too, probably thinking correctly that he wanted to lead a rebellion. Moses quickly went from celebrity to fugitive, from insider to outcast. He had no one to turn to so he fled Egypt. Settling in Midian, he married a shepherd girl and took on a new job of keeping the flocks of this father-in-law. As far as he was concerned, his public life was over. He had retired to the simplicity of sheep keeping.

But God was not through with Moses. What Moses did not know then and what we often do not know now is that our greatest times of failure and the times when we seemingly have been put out to pasture, are really times of God's hands-on training in our lives. God often trains his children by putting them through the furnace of affliction. Failure, difficulty, isolation, rejection; these are God's tools to transform us from what we are to that person He can use for his glory.

When Moses' forty years in the desert were completed, he was a vastly different man. He no longer had the brash self-confidence of his youth. Years in the desert had taught him that there was very little that he himself could control. In fact, Moses' self-esteem seems to have been so low that when God finally called him out of the bush, Moses tried every way possible to get out of going back to Egypt. He did not think he could do it.

Now Moses was ready for God's use. Now Moses was ready to understand that God's power, not his own, was the only way the Israelites could be delivered from slavery.

Often, God has to break us down before he can build us anew in His own image and for His service. Our problems are usually with ourselves, problems of pride, selfishness, and misplaced confidence. Only when God transforms our focus from ourselves to Him can we be truly used by Him.

May we recognize God's training program for what it is and submit to His corrections to our lives. They are all for our own good...and for His greater glory.

Tony