Moses

How do you tell your story? Probably with a beginning, middle, and end: “I started here, then I went through that, and this is where I am now.” Makes sense. That’s the end … but not always to God. Sometimes, to God, an end is actually the middle. Take a look at Moses.

Moses was a Hebrew born in Egypt, but he was raised in Pharaoh’s house as a prince. He lived there until he was 40 and ended up killing an Egyptian who was mistreating a Hebrew slave. He fled to Midian, where he got married, had a couple of kids, and settled into tending sheep. He was there in Midian for 40 years when we come to Exodus 3. (Read Exodus 2 for the full story.)

Moses likely felt his best years were behind him and that Midian would be the end of his story. But it turned out to actually be the middle.

We’ll stay with Moses for a minute, but consider: What if an ending in your life is actually the middle of a story?

Moses committed murder and then ran away. He had no reason to expect there was anything more. But that's the thing — when you're in it, the middle feels like the end. We're talking about failures, moments of setback, and closed doors. We're talking about rejection.

When Moses heard God call his name twice from the burning bush, he was standing in the middle of his mess, his mistakes, and his fears. God doesn't wait for you to get out of the wilderness to call you; He meets you right in the center of it.

In this pivotal moment, God told Moses he would be the one to deliver His people from slavery, and Moses hesitated. But that hesitation wasn’t rooted in rebellion; it was rooted in rejection. He was still looking back at Egypt, thinking his mistakes had disqualified him. He was judging his entire life by a single low moment.

Maybe you’re wondering today, "Is this all there is? Is this the end?" You feel the weight of your stress because you’re keeping yourself at the center of the story. But here’s the secret: Selflessness is the most underused tool for stress management. When you realize everyone’s in the middle of something, it makes you more merciful. And when you begin to see that your struggle is actually training for how you’ll eventually help someone else, the end starts to look like a beginning.

Here’s some encouragement to you: Stop judging your calling by your current circumstances. God uses your messy, quiet, sheep-tending years to prepare you for your deliverance years. Write the next five years of your life as if they’ve already happened, and God was with you. Take what feels like an end, and move it to the middle. This is just a chapter — a scene — of your story.

The wilderness isn’t where you go to die; it’s where you go to be called.