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Sunday, September 18, 2016

Mantra #1 - Be Faithful

Over the last number of months I have developed 3 mantras to live by as I follow Jesus. Really, they aren't anything I developed, but things found throughout Scripture. I uses these mantras as tools to root myself in the important things, to see good, and to not wish I was anywhere else, but here.

'Always be faithful' has been a difficult journey for me. up until a couple of years ago it seemed as though I was always looking to do something different, change things, and not be committed to where I was. I would regularly research way to get out of the very thing God has put me in. What I was essentially saying to God was, 'Thanks for what you have given me, but I'm going to try something else.' This sounds awfully familiar, if it does, it's because it is what Adam and Eve said to God way back when humanity started.

I have found it hard throughout my life to believe where I am and what I am doing is what I need to be doing right now. I've lived my life in the pursuit of something else; giving my time to the pursuit instead of the very thing before me. As I came face to face with this reality a couple of years ago I started studying the life of Moses. Moses is an incredible man. Moses was an Israelite by birth, but at the time the Israelites were enslaved to the Egyptians. Moses was placed in a basket and put along the Nile River. He was scooped up by Pharaoh's daughter and raised as an Egyptian. After this time, 40 years Scripture says, he was overseeing parts of Egypt and saw an Egyptian beating an Israelite. Deep within Moses there was something wrong. In his anger he acted, killed the Egyptian, and buried him under the sand in hopes no one would find out. Well people did find out and because of this Moses ran, her ran and ran and ran to a distant land. There he met and started working for man named Jethro. This man became Moses father-in-law when Moses married one of his daughters. For 40 more years Moses tended to sheep as a shepherd.

40 years.
40.
14,600 days.
2,080 weeks.

Moses did his work as a shepherd exceptionally well and faithfully, but seemingly out of no where heard a voice, saw a bush, and heard the voice of God. God called him out of shepherding sheep and asked him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.

Moses was faithful for 40 years as a shepherd before God called him. 40 years of not hearing from God our wondering if God was around. 40 years of wondering what was going on. 40 years of being faithful to thing which had been given to him.

Through the life of Moses I was convicted in my experience to be faithful. Be faithful to everything God has given me. This does not mean I don't hope for things, or what something different, but what the experience has done is taught me God wants to show me something here now with the very things God has given me.

I have learned, and it's HARD, to start to be faithful to what God has given me. 

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