What does God do next? He took Moses to a lonely
place for 40 years (Exodus 3). God had a purpose, to bring Moses in line with
His plan, with His purpose for the children of Israel. God showed Moses he was
one of this tribe of people. Now God had to mold him into the man-leader He
needed to take these chosen people from slavery through the desert and the
battles into the Promised Land. Moses knew God put a vision in him, His vision.
He may have wondered why Yahweh was taking so long to put him into action. God
has a plan. During the forty years with Jethro, God taught Moses how to be a
shepherd, how to be a Hebrew, how to pray, and how to wait on His timing. After
those years, God molded Moses into His own man to lead His people, to stand up
to His people as their God-appointed leader, and to hear His voice.
Let us step forward a few hundred years to
David. David was a shepherd boy and the youngest of his father’s sons (1 Samuel
16). God, through Samuel, appointed David to be the king of His people while he
was still a teenager. Did David ascend to the throne at once? No, God took him
through years of shepherding, battle-training, empire-leading, and spiritual
learning. God had David live in the king’s palace just as Moses did. God did
not just choose the men and put them into the fire of His work. He took His
time - put them through the valley, the fires, and the floods - to shape them
to be His anointed leader who recognizes Him as their guide and help. They waited
on God instead of running and “doing” the vision on their own steam. These men
waited on God’s exact guidance to fulfill the vision.
Fast forward a thousand years or more to the
time of Jesus and His disciples. Almost immediately upon the start of Jesus’
ministry, He called men to Him. Did He send the men out immediately to perform
miracles or preach the Word? No, Jesus taught them the Word was alive and with
them. He taught them the power of the Word. Jesus taught them the purpose of
the Word. He taught them how to be followers of the Word. Jesus taught them so
they would believe. The fishermen were Jewish; that was not an issue. Jesus had
to train them that the Word was Himself, God among them. For three years, the
disciples walked with Jesus. They walked with Him, learned how to teach, and
learned who Jesus was, from where His power came, and through Whom God would
save the Israelites. The disciples, too, saw, in person, the life of Jesus so
they could not doubt He is the Son of God brought to earth to save humanity
from their sins and bring them eternal communion with the Father, Yahweh God. This
Yahweh and Son are one in the same and are the same as the One who trained
Moses and David. The three years Jesus trained His disciples, He molded them into
men of God, not just fishermen. They were used to the storms of the sea as
fishermen, but they were not accustomed to the storms which humanity created.
The disciples experienced first-hand the cunning of humanity through the acts
of the Pharisees and the jealousy of the current kings of the land. They watched
the indifference of the people who chose to follow like blind sheep rather than
trust a God with whom their people had history. The disciples experienced a
Jehovah who calls the lowest in the land to become shepherds of His chosen
people. They experienced the denial and wrath of people who chose not to follow
Jesus and threw taunts and stones at them for “blaspheming.” In all of this,
the disciples did not give up on the Jesus who chose them, the ones whom Jesus
asked the Father to sanctify because they remained firmly with Him on earth and
stood strong during trials. These men were the ones that Jesus protected and
guarded in the Father’s name and the ones whom Jesus felt He must safeguard
when His time on earth finished (John 17). The Father chose these men out of
His chosen people to be the ones whom Jesus called to follow Him, to receive
power from on high (the Holy Spirit), and to “go into all the world preaching
the Good News” (Matthew 28:18-20).
Are
Moses, David, and the disciples different from you or me? Did they have anything
more in them than we do as Christ followers? God called each of these people to
be His own possession, to be His witnesses (Acts 1:8). The desire that each of
these people had is no different from the desire we have now as disciples,
followers, of Jesus. This desire is not a desire of “doing” for Jesus, but of
being in perfect relationship with Him. We, in this way, have a perfect
relationship with Him, being entirely His as Jesus stated to the Father in the
Garden of Gethsemane (John 17). This garden is where countless generations of
God-followers went to pray. The garden is where Christ anguished about His
sacrifice, the garden of His betrayal. This garden is where we must watch and
pray. The garden of Gethsemane is the place where each of the men came before
God when He called them to Himself, a garden of prayer and watching and
waiting. This could be any garden in your life from where the Father and Son
have called you to serve Him. God will become manifest to each person He calls at
this point, the place from which God’s transformation of the man and woman He
calls begins. It could take forty years like Moses, twenty-five years like
David, or three years like the disciples. The timing is not the important part,
but waiting for God and His molding of them for His purpose. As children
created by God, He calls to each one of us to come to Him, be made new, sit quietly
before Him, and be filled with the Holy Spirit. God calls us because He loves.
He waits for us because He loves. God keeps watch for us because He loves. Do
we hear, watch, and wait for God to call us, remake us, and lead us to the
vision to which He calls us? Alternatively, do we “boldly go where no man has
gone before” and walk in our own strength and knowledge? Would you not rather
have your senses heightened and used for him - your mind renewed, heart
re-called, soul returned, and your body replenished - instead of walking
forward in your own strength? To have each of these areas transformed by God
creates in us a strength unknown to humanity to “go and tell,” no matter how
far or into what circumstance He calls us to go - the vision which God places
on our hearts. Jesus told us that to love God, we must love Him with all our
heart, soul, mind and strength (Luke 10:27). Can we give ourselves to God to
love Him this way and allow Him to re-mold us for His purposes? God had a
vision for His people Israel, to lead them, guide them, and save them. He has a
vision for our lives, too. He calls us to the vision He places in our hearts,
for which we must be in a continual relationship with Him. What are you and I
willing to give to God to be in relationship with Him - to be re-molded and re-made
over time for a purpose, to experience and share God’s love, and be a channel
of God’s love?
