Moses (the “Drawn from the Water” who miraculously escaped a death sentence as a baby) is now eighty years old (!) and busy tending his father-in-law’s  ock on the backside of the desert when God meets him in the famous burning bush (Exodus 3:1-6). How time flies. This is a good forty years after Moses, upset by the suffering of his fellow Hebrews, tried to embark on his private people-rescue-mission, which turned awfully sour and thus had to be abandoned (Exodus 2). Yet, God is still aware of Israel’s misery (Exodus 3:7)...

• Whilst I’m writing this, I can’t help but ponder over the issue of patience. How much patience do a people or individual have to exercise for God to show up? I mean, look at it, the day Moses (the Lord’s chosen agent to lead Israel out of captivity) was born, Israel was already crying out for God’s help and intervention for an eternity of centuries. It’s so easy to lose hope. And now another eternity of eighty years had passed with no apparent help from God Most High. Was He even listening? — Yes, He was. And He was busy, too. Or to be more precise, He was busy waiting for the fullness of time and His chosen agent to match up to the task of bringing about change. So now, in Exodus 3, the day and hour had finally come to get the whole kit and caboodle rolling with some action. The irony is that those crying out for help didn’t even realize it yet.

• Surely, I’m not the only one longing for the Lord to come through in all the difficulties flooding our lives, am I? A quick and easy solution for our problems, especially now as things get progressively stressful, would be brilliant, wouldn’t it? Is God even listening to our cries and petitions? Well, perhaps God is busy … and we just don’t realize it yet? Are we willing to be patient for God’s set time of change to come? Are we open for Him to ready us for the task He called us to fulfill? Naturally, for us, time is a precious, cause limited, “commodity”. So we want everything now or ASAP. Yet the Lord is never in a rush...

So God explains His rescue plan (V 8-9) to Moses and the role he has to play in it (V 10) (which, by the way, looks different to what Moses tried to do forty years before) and what does that fellow do? He starts endless arguments with his Creator! Can you believe it!? First he feels incompetent for the job (V 11). Next thing, he doesn’t know how to explain who send him (V 13). Then he questions his God-given authority (Exodus 4:1). And if that wasn’t enough, he tries getting out of the job cause he can’t talk eloquently (V 10). My goodness, what an amazing change to the man he was forty years before! “Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses […]”, we read in V 14, and you can sort of sympathize with God, can’t you? Yet, where we would have probably blown it, He settles all those arguments once and for all, furnishes Moses with  final instructions for his return to Egypt (V 19-20), gives amazing prophecies for what is to come (V 21-23), and puts Moses’ silver-tongued speaking older brother Aaron at his side (V 27). Together they meet with the elders of Israel (V 28-29) and by sharing what God instructed them to share and performing the signs God told Moses to perform (V 30), the elders believe that the Lord is on their case (V 31).

Don’t know about you, but, probably much like Israel then, I  find it extremely taxing to see the world falling apart, nations collapsing, societies disintegrating, cultures misleading, leadership failing, injustice increasing, a few people dominating and the majority of the population faltering under oppression and man-made economical burdens. Yet I have to remind myself that our Creator is not oblivious of all this. He is on our case! Perhaps we are not really with Him? Are we still arguing with God about our shortcomings that disqualify us for His calling on our life? Are we perhaps one of the reasons why the Lord can’t progress yet with his plans and purposes? Perhaps the time has come where we all have to lay our personal agendas aside and listen to and team up with The One in charge to finally help getting His people out of its current mess in a concerted effort? If we refuse, God is never in a rush...

Gottfried Hetzer

www.gottfried-hetzer.com