ImperfectSample

The Right Thing the Wrong Way

Moses had a calling stamped on his life from the womb. Born into slavery, hidden in a basket to escape Pharaoh’s massacre of Hebrew boys, and raised inside the very palace of his enemy, he grew up knowing his heart belonged with the Hebrews and not with Egypt. So when he watched an Egyptian beating one of his own people, something in him snapped. He looked around, saw no witnesses, killed the man, and then buried him in the sand.

Moses wanted to do the right thing—deliver his people. That instinct was God-given, but the execution was disastrous. He acted out of his own anger, his own timing, and his own strength, and ended up running for his life into the desert with blood on his hands and forty years of sheep-tending ahead of him.

A lot of us do the same thing (though usually in less dramatic ways!). We sense God nudging us toward something good and try to force it into existence on our own timeline, pushing the conversation, manipulating the circumstance, or taking matters into our hands because waiting on God feels too risky.

God isn’t only interested in the result; He’s shaping the person who will carry it. The Moses who buried an Egyptian in the sand and the Moses who later parted the Red Sea were the same man with the same calling, separated by forty years of learning to let God be his strength instead of his backup plan.

Pray

Lord, where I’ve been pushing in my own strength, give me the patience to wait on You and the wisdom to follow Your way and not just my instinct. Amen.