Let My People Go!

I think of Moses. It may have been like any other day, except on this day while tending Jethro his Father-In-Law's sheep, he had led the flock to the far side of the wilderness to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses noticed that the bush was on fire but it did not burn up. Curious to inspect this strange phenomenon, Moses edged closer. At that moment, God called to him from within the bush! How incredible that in our everyday existence our everyday livelihoods God can show up at any time, in the most spectacular fashion. Here Moses was leading sheep, yet he was the one being led!

How significant that at the far end of the wilderness was the mountain of God. It was a Divine appointment. God called, "Moses! Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am" "Do not come any closer," God said, "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is Holy Ground" The ground was Holy by Gods Presence. Moses would have been familiar with Egyptian priests' custom of removing their shoes before entering the temples. Here God showed Himself as the All Powerful, the one with all the power and authority. Moses yielded to Gods authority as God demonstrated His omnipresence. "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. (Exodus 3:3). Here was an interjection of Gods plan for a man who was going about his usual business. It's both terrifying and exhilarating to be given a word from God! A mission, a mandate to embark on something so big, that you are hardly able to digest or conceptualise what is required of you? What an adrenalin rush, what confusion, a myriad emotions too many to work through. Yet so comforting and reassuring to those who think they have nothing to offer, nothing to give, too unqualified or not equal to the task - Along comes God repeatedly and deliberately choosing the least likely candidates - so that His strength can be perfected in our weakness. I believe God hears the cries of His people across the globe today, and He needs His servants and ambassadors to mobilise, to take heed of Gods instructions, exhibiting a radical boldness to execute whatever God has commissioned knowing full well that He is faithful when we are willing.

One moment Moses was tending sheep, the next He was spearheading the liberation of over two million Israelites out of Egypt! It was a mammoth shift. It was a mammoth task! The Israelites were bound in slavery in Egypt for four hundred years. This was not just a physical liberation, but first their minds and hearts needed to be transformed and freed, perhaps the most difficult 'real estate' to set free, our minds! Small wonder then that a journey only needing eleven days from Horeb to Canaan's border took forty years to reach. Many of the Israelites were steeped in the customs and traditions of the Egyptians and God wanted all of these practices rooted out of them before they entered the Promised Land. Sexual immorality, idolatry a spirit of murmuring were amongst the evil that their sojourn through the wilderness helped eradicate. Patient endurance is a fruit of the spirit cultivated through difficult terrain. "Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus" Revelation 14:12.

When we look at Moses' timeline, his first forty years was spent in Egypt, the next forty years in Midian and the last forty years in the wilderness. Incredible how each of these chapters in Moses' life served a purpose for which it all accrued and culminated into the call on his life and for exactly where God positioned and purposed Him to be. He first resisted Gods call on the basis that he felt insignificant and not eloquent enough to approach Pharaoh - But Gods reassurances and promises to go and that He would be with Him gave Moses the courage to say yes. This epic story must serve to inspire and challenge the roots of our faith. It encompasses the intricacies of liberation of borders and boundaries that spanned political, social and economic paradigms, yet God was able to break through each frontier in order to answer the cries of His people. He needed one man, He chose one man. Ordinary and unsuspecting, speech impaired and fearful, yet emboldened and emblazoned by Emmanuel, God with us!