How’s the coffee (or tea)?
Pull up a chair and let’s learn together from the Bible.
The book of Exodus sure has a lot of pages that can lull one to sleep, doesn’t it?
However, there is much to learn from it, so we need to stick to it. For example, buried in the details of the Mosaic Law are some interesting and helpful tidbits.
For instance, in chapter twenty-three, we have such a case – just a little portion that has caught my eye – verses twenty-nine and thirty. Here it is from the NJKV.
“I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the land.” [emphasis added]
Let’s see what we can learn from that. Obviously, it’s a statement from God, through Moses, but not by Moses. This is in the context of God’s providing instructions for occupying the land He has promised. We see this context especially in verses twenty through thirty-three.
God is warning the people that their occupation of the land will take several years, as it is a major task to win the victory and then to begin to settle and manage the land. If this should happen too easily or quickly, nature would reclaim the land faster than the Israelites could handle it. Thus, God intends and expects a gradual occupation, accompanied by putting down solid roots in the land.
What does that suggest to us? Life is lived in incremental steps. We don’t come to the Lord, and then ‘magically’ jump into maturity and useful significance.
Take Moses himself, for example. He had superb training for leadership as the acquired son of Pharaoh. He went to the best schools, was diligently prepared as a prince for leadership, and had at least twenty years of subordinate leadership positions in preparation for major accomplishments. How much God had blessed this poor, insignificant Hebrew boy! Yet, in God’s plan, Moses was not yet ready to lead his Hebrew people, although he obviously thought he was.
So, at age forty, he sought to illustrate his leadership potential by striking and killing an Egyptian overseer of the Hebrew slaves. But, instead of this rebellious act working for him, he was rejected by the Hebrews and hunted by the Egyptians for murder. He had to flee to the wilderness of Midian to save his life. He was done! The life he had been prepared for and obviously desired was shot.
He went from prince to pauper, making his living for the next forty years as a shepherd in a barren land. He gave up his dreams and settled into a life of mediocrity. He needed to learn humility along with his princely attributes, before God was ready to use him. Finally, God called him to the daunting task of now rescuing the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. You can refresh your thinking by reading about this in Exodus one through four.
God dealt in similar fashion with others. For example, He chose David as a teenager, but it was many years before David became king, having gone through many hardships and dangers.
God usually works like that with believers. Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, and others waited years to be entrusted by God with important responsibilities. Someone has said, “When God wants to grow a squash, he takes only a few months. When He wants to grow an Oak, He takes twenty years.
Just as there is a learning curve for any human occupation or interest, so there is for God’s people. He moves us step-by-step, “by little and little,” until we are ready. Our job is to be available in the little matters to become prepared for greater matters. Unfortunately, the church often lays hold of an enthusiastic new Christian and places him or her in a position of great responsibility, wrongly assuming the person is prepared, simply because he or she has Christian fervor and desires.
God is not in a hurry; He takes His time. So should we, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness.” (2 Timothy 2:15-16).
