11One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. 12He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, "Why do you strike your companion?" 14He answered, "Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid, and thought, "Surely the thing is known." 15When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well.
This was the focal point of yesterday's sermon. Moses started out trying to wage a guerrilla war against Egyptian oppression, but he was doing it in his own strength.
When the time came, he was God's spokesman to Pharaoh, but it was God that was doing the work, not Moses. Of course, it took four decades in Midian and a visit to a burning bush before he got to get that shape-shifting staff and all those plagues to make him look good.
We generally don't want to wait forty years. Two years in the wilderness is enough for weak-kneed folks like me. However, when we try to speed God's timing along, we get Ishmaels that don't work as well as God intends for us.
Thankfully, most things in God's timetable for us come in smaller than two-score increments. However, we still need to wait upon that timetable, or get something substandard.
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