Some of us remember more about the 60’s and 70’s than the caricatured images in the media. We lived them. We may have worn the bell bottoms and flashed an occasional peace sign, but we weren’t into sex, drugs, and dropping out.
Some of us were part of the Jesus movement. We flooded the college dorms with evangelism; we witnessed in coffee houses that played the new folk-sounding Christian music; we studied the Bible in small groups that the institutional church sometimes considered suspect. We felt we were part of once again turning the world upside down for Jesus.
Yet, somewhere along the way, as the song goes, the music died
We married, some had kids, most had careers. The passion that at one time fueled evangelism was turned to making money and a good life. We turned John 10:10 from a promise of the eternal life of God gave to believers into a justification for pursuing our version of what “life to the full” meant. We settled. From studying the Bible, we turned to studying stock portfolios, investment options, and how to get ahead. From concentrating on evangelism, we perfected our golf game or the perfect recipe in our spare time. We look forward to retirement.
I imagine Moses, at age 80 may have had similar thoughts. At one time he wanted, he tried, to do something great for God. He felt God had called him to free Israel from oppression; he felt it so strongly he even killed a man he saw wrongly treating a fellow Israelite. But instead of his Jewish brothers recognizing him as liberator, his actions forced him to flee Egypt.
That was a long time ago and Moses had settled into a routine in the desert—tending sheep, raising a family. Wandering around the desert. At 80, I wondered if he couldn’t help but think that maybe it was time to spend a little more time in the tent than tending the flocks. He was probably tired.
But one day a bush was burning.
The God of second chances never stops calling
God called Moses to an extraordinary destiny and a second chance to do what he had been called to do, born to do.Continue Reading