Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

Exodus 3:1

Moses, a man of forty years old, found pasture in a far away land, on the “back side of the desert”.  He had lived his entire life in the palace.  After murdering a man, he fled to a far away place, and found favor with a man named Jethro, a priest of Midian.  For the next forty years, until he was a man of eighty years old, are scarcely mentioned.  He married Jethro’s daughter, had children.  And, his greatest achievement to show the world up to that point, as a murder, was tending someone else’s sheep.  For forty years.

God requires us to leave everything.  God cannot build off His Kingdom on the rubble of Egypt, which is a type of the world, and that which has been built from the other often needs to be stripped to nothing for God’s work to begin.

It is not just that Moses went from the palace to the far side of the wilderness.  It was not just that he went from authority, power, and influence to nothing.  He became a servant, and a shepherd.  He was lower than low.  He didn’t even own the sheep he tended.

As a slave in a foreign land, he became an intercessor for the people he would in turn return to rescue.  He became identified with Israel’s sufferings, though he was a king, and became a slave and a prisoner, exactly as they were.  Despised and lower and the low.

Jesus too, came and lived as a man for thirty years.  He lived perfectly, and made no error, but it was his humanity that made him capable to be our High Priest, capable of being touched with our infirmities.

Moses had tried to do it the other way, but no one received him.  He had killed an Egyptian in an attempt to liberate the people, but the saw him as one of them, and asked if he would kill them next.

But, Moses had to be stripped.  He had to be prepared.

He spent the days in the wilderness in a happy home, but with nothing.  He did not choose where to live, where to tend his flock, or enjoy the increase of his labors.  He enjoyed nothing of the things this life.  He was born a deliverer, and he  lived for  another people.

God always has His way to prepare a man.  He has a pit for Joseph, a cave for David, and someone else’s sheep for Moses.  He will always see to it that His man is made ready.

The completeness of a testimony is assured, for He will not give His glory to another.

And, of course, when the day comes, it is prepared, the way He has for you.

For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:11 KJV

When God is ready, an entrance shall be ministered unto you, abundantly.  And entrance into heaven, ultimately in the end, and an entrance in the day of His choosing into whatever measure of His Kingdom is available for you now.

What you gave up, you often end up looking at again, in one form or another.  As the world is now crucified to us, and we are to it, so Moses came to look back the same Egypt forty years later.  As He led someone else’s sheep for forty years in the desert, so to, He would lead the Lord’s sheep, Israel.

What could be more humiliating to a man, more humbling to an ego, and more stripping to a person than to go from everything to nothing.  Yet, when we allow Him to use it, He can turn it into one of the greatest things ever.

Someone else’s sheep is not attractive to us, but if it accomplishes what it needs to, it is to God.  Moses never had His own “flock”.  He lived always as someone else’s shepherd after that day.  But, it did what was needed in his heart.

His glory was shown to Moses later, in the bush and on the mount.  His voice spoke to Him in a cloud, within the tent of meeting.  His mouth was the mouth that spoke as God, and commanded sea to blood.  His mind was the mind God used, to write His holy law.  He was a vessel prepared and used, for God’s holy plan.

The cost of discipleship for Moses was “all”, and today, it remains the same.  We don’t get what we want, and we may never have our own, but the reward makes it worth it all.

To be as close as Moses walked, with God being face to face, is to me, worth any price, including feeding someone else’s sheep.  What does it matter, in the end, after all the world is gone, whether a single penny was ours today, if it does not help His flock?

We turn and look at Moses today.  We see the man of legend.  But, who was he, but a murder and a nobody who God drew out, and turn aside, to see a bush that was burning.