It’s so easy to get caught up in what is going on in our lives right now—especially if it is hard or challenging. I’m almost 38, and can look back just over the last 10 years and see a roller coaster of events. But isn’t that life? It has its ups and downs, sometimes as results of our choices, others just because of the world we live in. It can be hard to maintain hope, to see through the dips and over the tops of the hills.
Recently at church, my pastor talked about Moses. I tried to imagine what it would have been like for him and what he though about his life at many different points. Let me give you a brief recap:
–Born with a death sentence just because he was a Israelite boy
–Saved and adopted by the King’s daughter and raised by his own mother
–Through adolescence and into young adulthood, raised as a prince in the palace with access to everything
–After killing a guard for beating a Israelite slave, fled and then lived a life as a shepherd in the wilderness
–Chosen to represent and free the Israelites by God, Moses appeared before the king multiple times, delivering God’s messages
–Led the people out of Egypt, and then spent 40 years wandering around the wilderness.
–When it was time to go into the promised land, Moses could only see into it, not enter
Moses lived for 122 yrs. I wonder how many times he asked, “how did I end up here?” or “this just isn’t what I had planned.” Especially at the end, after all he had done to serve God, including writing five books of the Bible, he couldn’t even step foot in to the land that had been the destination for all those years. That doesn’t seem fair at all. But then when you look deeper, it was a punishment for a particular sin in his past. God did allow him to see it before he died. In fact the Bible even specifies that Moses had great vision at the end of his life. It’s almost as if God kept that in place to reward Moses for the life he lead in serving him.
Through all the ups and downs that were his life, the truth is, Moses had hope in God’s plan, even if he needed to sort it out and wrestle with it.
We also have that same hope in Jesus and His plan for our lives. We will have plenty of moments that don’t seem fair to us or others, but once the ride is over, it will make sense.
Keith Sampson
Executive Coordinator – God of Hope