God's Training Program--The Desert

It’s been said, “God’s callings are His enablings”, yes, but the way He may be pleased to prepare His vessels is as varied as the vessels themselves.

Consider God’s way with Moses.  Easy enough to see the divine set up of God’s having Pharaoh’s daughter take in hand Moses to raise him as her own son, providing all the educational and cultural advantages needful in a one-day, founding ruler over Israel.  Yet in those earliest years when it was not uncommon for mothers to not wean their children until three to five years of age, Moses mother, Jochebed, would have had ample opportunity to impart critical Hebrew understandings to him before he was taken into Pharaoh’s court full-time.  That covert training manifest itself when Moses slew the Egyptian guard, thinking his fellow Hebrews would be supportive and cover his deed.  They didn't and Moses fled to the desert.

The training of Pharaoh’s court is universally recognized as critical to Moses’ intellectual development, but what of the desert and its potential for training? Too often this time is dismissed as “throw away” time, but what if God designed this time particularly for Moses' spiritual development? 

First, an operational base.  This God provided Moses by causing him to find favor with Jethro, who gave one of his daughters, Zipporah, to him who bore him a son called “Gershom”, meaning “I have been a so-journer in a foreign land”.  That’s it.  The only other “word” identifying this time in the desert was the fact Moses shepherded Jethro’s sheep.

But what of the remainder of Moses’ time in the desert?  Immediately it must be established most deserts are an unforgiving environment.  But Moses not only learned to survive in the desert, he obviously thrived by virtue of the fact he could shepherd sheep for a large part of forty years.  In the process he learned the secrets of the desert.  When, for example, it was safe to lead sheep through a “wadi”, Arabic for a dry canyon floor which could be subject to flash flooding; where and when meager pasturage could be found and where the watering holes were.  Also, his ears would have been sharply attuned for sounds signaling the presence of a predator—to meet any such head on. 

How much more instructive would have been the quiet of the nights, particularly the moon-less, star-lit nights.  After the sheep were settled for the night, most likely in some sort of an enclosure easily defended by him at the “gate”, Moses had time to peer into the depths of the darkness.  The more intently he peered into the heavens, the more deeply he saw the depths of his own soul and remembered his people in Egypt and those stories his mother told about God’s promises to Israel.

Then one day innocently leading the flock “. . .to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God” (Exodus 3:1), Moses had his “burning bush” encounter and his desert preparation was over.  This period had begun and concluded abruptly.  Lessons were learned. The time was right. God had his man.

Have you been in a dry place, away from the limelight, perhaps hidden, but not in sin or rebellion and wondering if you have missed the purposes of God?  Remember Moses.