Exodus 3: Busy, Broken and Bare

How do you handle life when you’re in trouble and heaven is silent? When your back is against the wall and you find yourself between a rock and a hard place and you’ve cried long and loud to God and God gives you no answer? 

This is Israel’s plight in Exodus. They entered Egypt as honored and privileged guests, but all of that radically changed after the death of Joseph. For the Bible says “there rose a king who knew not of Joseph” (Exodus 1:8).

Allow me to remind us today, as the people of God, we are often quick to forget about Joseph. We often forget the human instruments the Lord has used to aid and assist us to get us to where we are right now. For 400 years the Israelites had been in bondage, they had been crying loud and long unto the Lord to send them a deliverer. 

There are two things you have to remember about God when life is hard and heaven is apparently silent: First, God never has a lapse of memory when the plight of His people is concerned. In the midst of your trouble, Satan will always try and make you believe that God has forgotten about you. But rest assured, whatever it is you’re going through God knows and cares about it. Secondly, you have to remember the God of the universe does not wear a watch. God is not held down by what we call time. We get frustrated when God doesn’t work things out according to our timetable. But God is not moving around in time; rather time is wrapped up in God. God is moving around in eternity. The psalmist writes in Psalm 90:4, “A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by.”

Exodus 3 teaches us that for 400 years the Israelites had been in bondage and then God raised up Moses. Moses spent the first 40 years of his life in Pharaoh’s palace being told that he was “somebody.” Moses then spent the next 40 years of his life in the desert attending Jethro’s sheep, finding out that he was actually a nobody. Only to find himself spending the next 40 years of his life leading God’s people discovering what God can do with a nobody.

The Bible says that Moses was going about his daily task of attending Jethro’s flock when he came upon the burning bush. Burning bushes are common sights out in the desert, but what arrested Moses’ attention is that this bush was burning, but not being consumed. When Moses turned aside to see the bush, he turned and heard the voice of God calling him by name saying “Moses, Moses pull off your shoes for the very ground you stand on is Holy ground” (Exodus 3:5).

What can we learn from Moses’ encounter? This third chapter of Exodus teaches us that we hold on by remaining busy. 

Moses was going about his regular routine attending Jethro’s flock. One of the things you need to know about the God we serve is that God has little time or tolerance for lazy people. Everyone God has ever called was doing something when God called them. It may not have been the right something, but rest assured they were doing something. Moses was attending Jethro’s flock. Amos said he was a dresser and keeper of sycamore trees. Matthew was called from his seat at a tax-collecting desk. Peter was called from his fishing enterprise. Paul was called from the road of Damascus on his way to persecute the church. 

Moses left home that morning like he had every morning. Nothing unusual about it. Nothing strange. Nothing out of the ordinary. Moses was going about his regular routine, that is what he did everyday attending Jethro’s flock. Sadly, we live in a time where people are tuned into and turned on by the extraordinary. If you only see God in the extraordinary you are going to miss God most of the time. For the God we serve doesn’t just work in the extraordinary – God works in the ordinary. Think about it, we are here today not because God has worked in the extraordinary, but because God has worked in the ordinary. No bolt of lighting came through our window to wake us up this morning. Like my grandmother would say, “God simply stopped by this morning and touched my body with the fingertips of love; my eyes opened up to see a brand new day – one I’ve never seen before and surely I will never see again.” That’s God working in the ordinary. Hold on in your busyness, but also hold on in your brokenness.

The late Reverend Dr. William Franklin Buchanan who pastored 15th Avenue in Nashville would say that many of us are broken-world people. Meaning, our lives have been impacted and even transformed by some devastating event. In the midst of some tragedy God literally transformed us to who we are right now. Moses was a broken world person. Moses had gone from being a prince in Egypt to a shepherd in the desert. He moved from the palace to the pasture. He moved from the company of noblemen to the company of sheep. Moses’ resume would read “ex prince of Egypt, 40 years assistant shepherd to Jethro.” Moses was a broken-world person. And sometimes there are moments God must demote us in order to humble us. To get us to the place where God can use us in life. Sometimes there has to be bleeding before there can be any blessings. Sometimes God has to break us in order to make us. And isn’t it amazing that, for the most part, we are closer to God when we are lonely than we are when we are lofting. Maybe it’s because God made us out of dust and maybe it’s when we hit the dust, literally, that God can put His hands on us and make us and mold us into the people He wants us to be. When God called Moses, Moses was a broken man. Egypt is a faded memory. All of his pride, all of his loftiness is drowned in the desert sand. Maybe you’re reading this and if you’re honest, you would admit your life has been broken, your dreams have been shattered. Your hopes have been crushed and you’re wondering “what in the world is going on in my life?” You are wondering “what in the world have I done to deserve all of this?” It may just be that God is getting you to the point and place in life where He can use you in His service. The hymnologist penned the words, “Use me Lord, in your service, draw me nearer every day. I’ll be willing Lord to run all the way. If I falter while I’m trying, don’t be angry, let me stay. I’ll be willing Lord to run all the way.” Hold on in your busyness, hold on in your brokenness, and finally, you must hold on in your bareness.

The bible reads that these things took place “on the backside of the desert” (Exodus 3:5). The word backside in the Hebrew is aw-khore, it literally means “beyond or behind his normal place.” Which suggests this day that Moses had gone a little farther than he had gone in days past. God calls him on the backside of the desert. In the most unlikely of places, God calls Moses. And maybe that’s because we find God in strange places. God has a way of showing up where we least expect it. God has a way of showing up in places where we really wish He wouldn’t show up. We find God in strange places. So what I’m trying to say to you is this, if you haven’t had an Isaiah type (Isaiah 6) of experience with God, don’t think that you’ve missed Him elsewhere. We all didn’t meet God in a sanctuary; some of us have met God in some strange and unlikely places. And if you have met God in a strange and unlikely place, you don’t have to feel bad, you don’t have to feel like you’re second-class because you’re in good company. Moses did not find God in a palace, but he met God in a desert. For somebody reading this today, if things have been drying up on you, and it looks like you’ve found yourself in a desert right now, it could be God trying to tell you something. Maybe God has allowed a desert to unfold before you, so that you will hear His voice and heed His call. Just hold on– hold on in your busyness, hold on in your brokenness and hold on in your bareness – your breakthrough is coming. 

*Dr. Boyd is a guest writer. He is the visionary pastor of The Historic Mount Bethel Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee.