The Perfect Family

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them.

Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.

Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

Colossians 3:18-21, NKJV

I'm sure there is a perfect family somewhere.  In some far off distant place to which I've never been, there has to be a husband who loves his wife perfectly, and that same wife selflessly surrenders complete authority to her husband and trusts his leadership in all things.  These two faultless, blemishless people have produced the most well-behaved children the world has ever known, children who are always polite and obedient, and most of all quiet and still when they need to be.  The correction is seldom because the instruction has been flawless and taken to heart.  This family is the model family, on display for the rest of us to pattern ourselves after.  I'm certain they exist.  

I've just never met them.

Before I was married, before I had three wonderful if rambunctious sons, before I had all this responsibility of provision and protection, I thought I had it all figured out.  I was determined that "my children will never..."  My family was going to be the model family.  My kids were going to be the best kids in the world.  The only problem with my ambition is that I was not then, never have been, nor never will be a perfect man.  And as much as I love and appreciate the queen of my home, my precious gift of comparable partner that God sent my way, she isn't perfect either.  So two imperfect people got together and had the bright idea of bringing three imperfections into the world.

Honestly, there are some days when we look at each other, and at least one of us will express what we are both thinking:  whose idea was this anyway?

We're doing the best we can.  We love God and keep him at the center of our lives, home, and family.  We teach our children to love Him and to love each other, to do what is right and abstain from what is wrong.  They are six, three, and one, and adorable cherubs, especially when they sleep.  They are good kids, overall, for the most part, well, when they remember what they've been taught.  But they also experience a lot of correction.  Which some might take to mean that they are not-so-good-kids.  But as their father I can say, I have good kids.  I just keep reminding myself and my wife of that.  We have good kids.  Mostly, I simply refuse to have bad kids.  They are going to toe the line.  Or else.

That's the way I was raised, by two Godly though imperfect parents.  They taught me right.  They disciplined me when necessary.  They defended me always.  They showed me the way to live closely to Christ.  My Dad loved my Mother for twenty-nine years until his death.  And Mom loved him, still does for that matter.  Dad loved, Mom submitted, and I obeyed...or else.  There were many lessons that were hard learned, but all in all, I think they did a pretty good job with my raising.  And from everything I've seen and heard, my wife's parents did a great job with their one and only daughter.

I'm not going to air any dirty laundry here today, but suffice it to say that, as good a job as our parents did raising us in the training and admonition of the Lord, they still managed to produce imperfect children who made their share of mistakes.  We grew up, we made choices for ourselves, we stepped out of line from time to time--hopefully when the folks weren't looking.  We've experienced our share of messes, paid the price, suffered the consequences...and in all things we've watched the grace of God at work, turning our messes into messages, our trials into triumphs, and our tests into testimonies.  We are living examples of God working all things together for our good, because we love Him and are called according to His purpose.

But I know that not all families can say the same.

There are pastors, like our parents, who raised their children in the training and admonition of the Lord, only to see those children turn their backs on their upbringing and walk away.  They've tried to instill their faith in the hearts and minds of their children, only to see those children reject everything they've been taught and pursue other philosophies that never satisfy.  They've tried to live holy and godly lives before their children, only to see their own mistakes and missteps magnified in the unholy and ungodly choices of those very children they've tried to raise.

It's easy to point to the wayward son or daughter and shame shame shame the parents.  It's easy to point to the kid with the DUI, the pregnant teenager, the student expelled for fighting on the playground, the mischief maker caught stealing watermelons or spray painting their name on the gymnasium wall, and say, "It's all the parents' fault.  If those people had done a better job raising those kids, those kids wouldn't have gotten in trouble."  It's easy to say that.  Unless you know how hard those parents prayed that their children would turn out right.  Unless you know how much effort those parents put into discipling and disciplining their kids.  Unless you know how committed they were to doing right and teaching right and showing their kids the right way.  Unless you know how heart-broken they are now, because their kids went astray.

Of course parents make mistakes.  I know I've made plenty, and that's a bitter pill to swallow considering all the condemnation I have heaped upon parents in the past because of the poor choices made by their offspring.  Of course they don't do everything exactly perfectly right. Who does?  And even if we could, even if we did, let us keep in mind that a perfect God made two perfect people and put them in a perfect world...and those two still managed to make the wrong choices and mess everything up.

Parents, trust yourselves and your children to God.  Do the best you can with the children you've been given while you have them in your care.  Recognize your faults, correct your failures, show them the way of grace, and mercy, and love, and truth.  Pray hard.  Teach them right.  Quit kicking yourself around for what your kids chose to do.  Believe for the best, love them through the worst.

And as for those with expectations of perfection, lighten up, live by grace, and let others do the same.  If you haven't experienced the horrors of children who break your heart, be thankful, but be prepared.  It has happened to the very best of parents, it could also happen to you.

I guess I have finally come to the realization that the responsibilities of parenthood are in the raising, not necessarily in the results.  That's why I pray every day, God help me to do right by my boys, to keep improving until my bad is good, my good is better, and my better is best.

The Responsibilities of Raising Children Right

Train up a child in the way he should go,

and when he is old he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 22:6, NKJV

I have three sons.  They are each their own man, so to speak, with distinct and different personalities, desires, and tendencies.  They are also still in development, and therefore still my responsibility.

My greatest desire as a father is that my sons will grow up to love the Lord Jesus Christ with all their hearts, minds, and souls, just as their mother and I do, just as their grandparents have and still do.  My greatest fear as a father is that I will fail to impart to them the necessary training and discipline they need to become men of God.

I am not a perfect man.  I wish I were, but the truth is I am all too human, and though saved I am sometimes all to fleshly to be able to say to my sons, "I want you to be exactly like me."  Hypocritical as it may sound, there are times when I would rather they obey what I say rather than imitate what I do.  I'm not a bad man.  I'm not living a double life, one way in front of the world and another in front of my boys.  But I acknowledge there are things I say and do that I don't want repeated in them.

Perhaps this is the constant struggle of all parents.  We want our kids to be the best they can possibly be, to do better and have more than we did.  We want them to triumph where we stumbled, to succeed where we failed.  We want them to exceed our highest expectations.  Before becoming a father at age forty, I held some pretty lofty ideals about child-rearing.  My children would never...and you can fill in the blank here!  Surely I'm not the only pre-parent to think that mine were never going to do what every child does.  Now with a few years of parenthood under my belt, I have met face to face with the grim specter of reality.  The only thing I will say about that is this:  raising kids is not for the faint of heart.

It takes courage, and strength, and wisdom, and grace, and those things in far more abundance than your personal resources will afford you.  It will cost you dearly and deeply, and will do so on a daily basis from now until your days are done.  It will drain you, exhaust you, frustrate you, grieve you.  But it will also reward you.  It will fill your life with endless memories of laughter and fun.  It will bring you joys that outweigh the sorrows, pride that surpasses the pain.  You will experience love like you have never known nor understood until it comes upon you at the most unexpected of times.

At least, that is my hope.

Right now, my boys are young.  They are still learning to talk right and walk straight.  Two years ago, my oldest made a clear confession of faith in Jesus Christ, based upon the instruction he had received from us, from his grandparents, from his Sunday School teachers.  He asked the Lord to forgive his sins--minor though they may have been--and to come into his life, to be his Savior.  I had the honor of baptizing him in water.  He is curious about deeper spiritual things, experiences that can be had in this Christian walk.  He can pray with child-like faith and see those prayers answered.  He sings songs of worship.  He carries his Bible around and tries to read it.  Last summer, during 24 hours at kids camp, he boldly proclaimed that God told him he was going to be a preacher.  And his constant question is, "When can I preach?"  The other day, I made what I thought was a general statement to him, something I think we big people can take for granted.  I said to him, "God has a plan for you life."

His response was classically him:  "What is it?"

"We'll find out together," I said.

More than a week later, he is still asking me, "Daddy, do you know the plan yet?"

I tried to give him some universal highpoints regarding the universal plan  of God, but he's not interested in generalities.  He wants specifics!  And even if I was confident in what I think the plan of God is for His life, I have at least have some God-guided discretion.  It's not my place to say, "Son, God wants to be such-and-such and do thus-and-so with the rest of your life."  He's six, after all, and there is plenty of time for Him to seek the Lord for Himself and find out what it is that God wants him to do.

In the meantime, I have a serious responsibility.  I have the divinely appointed task of raising these boys right.

How do I do that?

First and foremost, I must pass my faith along.  I must instill in them the faith experienced by me and their mother when we were young, and I need to see it done while they themselves are young.

I must teach them to love and appreciate the word of the Lord, the ways of the Lord, the work of the Lord, the worship of the Lord.

I must teach them the righteousness of God, that there is a right way and a wrong way, right actions and wrong actions, right beliefs and wrong beliefs.  Then I must teach them how to tell the difference between the two, and how to choose right over wrong, good over bad.

I must correct them when they disobey, just as my Father in heaven corrects me when I disobey.  

I must live out in front of them the life of faith and righteousness that I tell them they should have, showing them by word and by deed the way they should go.

And then I must trust the Lord to bring a good harvest from the seed I have sown, to touch their hearts as He touched mine a long time ago, to draw my precious boys to himself.  I can't make them believe in Him, I can't make them serve Him, but I can certainly show them the way.  And though I can't make them live for the Lord, I refuse to let them live for the devil.  

In brief, these are my responsibilities as I understand them.  Jesus, help me to carry them out, and do it well!

Moses: Have Your House in Order

A bishop then must be...one who rules his own house well,

having his children in submission with all reverence

(for if a man does not know how to rule his own house,

how will he take care of the church of God?);

1 Timothy 3:2, 4-5, NKJV

And it came to pass on the way, at the encampment,

that the LORD met [Moses] and sought to kill him...

Exodus 4:24, NKJV

To me, this is one of the stranger stories in the Bible.  God calls Moses to go to Egypt to deliver Israel out of slavery and the affliction of Pharaoh's hand.  Moses obeys, packs up his wife and kids, and starts down the road, but when they stop to camp for the night, God shows up intending to kill Moses.  Seeking to avert the disaster, Moses' wife Zipporah grabs a sharp rock and with it circumcises their son.  Hurling the bloody skin at Moses' feet, she declares, "You are a husband of blood!"  But God was satisfied by the action and turns His wrath away.

It's a story that has often left me scratching my head in bewilderment.  What was that all about?

Four hundred and some years earlier, God made a covenant with the patriarch Abraham, Moses' great-great-great-great grandfather.  God passed through the sacrifice of animals as a smoking furnace and a burning lamp, taking the responsibilities of upholding the covenant upon Himself.  As for Abraham, God instructed him thusly:  You, your sons, your servants and their sons, and all male children born to you from this time forth and forevermore will be circumcised.  This will be a sign in your flesh of the everlasting covenant. Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he cut his own flesh, and that of his sons and servants, but God's command was for this to be done to every infant boy on the eighth day after birth.  Failure to do so would be a breach of covenant and result in permanent separation from God.

Undoubtedly, Moses himself was circumcised on the eighth day by his father Amram.  As a descendant of Abraham, surely Jethro knew about and practiced the ritual circumcision.  It is possible that the Midianites were influenced by their kinsmen the Ishmaelites to circumcise at age thirteen--the age of Ishmael when he was cut into the covenant.  Or perhaps Zipporah had resisted the bloody ordinance.  Or maybe Moses had grown lax in his aged exile, or had not fully understood the implications of breaking the aged covenant of his people with their God.  Regardless of the reason, Moses had failed in his fatherly duties by leaving his son uncircumcised and therefore separated from that special covenant relationship with God.  When God shows up, Zipporah had to remedy the situation on her own, and it apparently made her mad to do so.  This also seems to be when Moses decided the trip was too much to take with his family and he sent them back to Jethro's tent while he continued on his way.  They would be reunited later, but for now this was to be a solitary journey.

So what's the point?

I think we find it illustrated throughout Scripture, but so plainly stated by the Apostle Paul in his instructions to Timothy regarding church leadership.  If a man wants to lead in the church, he must first have his own household in order.  Paul has a lot to say about a husband's love for his wife, a wife's submission to her husband, and children's obedience to their parents.  A man whose children are unruly and disrespectful, who won't correct them and teach them to do right, whose family life is in disarray, disqualifies himself from being able to lead others anywhere.

Moses was a great man of God, a great leader of God's people, a great prophet unequaled in Israel until Jesus came.  But at the beginning of his service to the Lord, there were some things that needed to be set in order.  He needed to obey the covenant instituted by God with his fathers, his people, and himself.  Circumcising his sons would have been an absolute necessity.  It's interesting to note that in spite of this little demonstration, during the forty years in the wilderness none of the boys born to the Children of Israel were circumcised.  It was something Joshua had to do en masse after they crossed the Jordan into Canaan.  Additionally, Moses' grandson Jonathan was partially responsible for Israel's initial idolatry during the time of the judges.  However great and good Moses was, it didn't transfer into everything he put his hand to, including his descendants.

But in this failure, Moses is not alone.

Adam and Eve raised Cain, the world's first murderer and an ungodly man.

Seth and Enos called on the name of the Lord, and Enoch walked with God, yet these righteous men were the progenitors of the people who perished in the flood.

Noah raised three sons, but Ham was a disrespectful fool who brought a curse upon his own descendants.

Lot was a just man vexed by the sins of Sodom, but his daughters were wretched heathens with no sense of decency or morality.

Isaac was the son of promise, but neither of his sons were saints.

Jacob wrestled with the Lord and prevailed, but raised a houseful of heathens who thought nothing of lying, stealing, fornicating, and murder.

Aaron, Moses' brother and the first High Priest of Israel, had four sons called into the priesthood with him, but two were struck dead for drunken revelry in the presence of the Lord.

Eli the Priest mentored Samuel into ministry, but failed with his own sons.

Samuel discipled two kings, but his own sons did not walk in his ways.

David was a man after God's own heart, but not one of his storied sons had the same relationship with the Lord.

Mary the mother of the Lord raised four other sons who did not believe...until after the Resurrection.

God used each of these people in spite of their wayward children, but that does not diminish the importance of ruling your own household well.  It doesn't negate the necessity of raising your children in the training and admonition of the Lord.  It doesn't allow us to abdicate our God-given responsibilities to teach our children right.  And even when parents do everything right, that magnum opus of ours still has a mind of his own, and oft times they will choose to do wrong when doing right would be best for them!  

Having your house in order is a must for the servant of God.  A slothful personal life, a lack of commitment to one's responsibilities, a failure to lead and shepherd one's family well...these will destroy a ministry.  A slack hand in raising and a refusal to discipline one's children will destroy a legacy.  And a child left to himself will bring shame upon his parents with his unchecked behavior.

So let the man and woman of God do their best with what has been entrusted to their care, tending to their family first, and after that the ministry.  If we are faithful and do our best, God will be faithful and do the rest.

Saying Yes

I don't know that I've ever told God, "No."

I've objected, like Moses.  I've given Him reasons and excuses, told Him I didn't want to do what He wanted of me.  I've tried to bargain with God, promising Him things He didn't ask for in order to get out of what He did ask for.  I've resisted.  I've sometimes been slow in responding.  But reviewing my life after forty years of serving Him, I think I'm safe in saying I've never outright said, "No."

Because I learned early on that it was much easier, and much better for me, if I just said, "Yes."

Eighteen years ago, I was in a bad way.  Certain circumstances in my life had soured, and I was looking for a way out.  In fact, as I sought counsel from friends and family, from mentors and peers, I universally received the answer I was looking for.  "Get out," they all said.  "We'll help you in every way that we can, but get out!"  That was the easy route, the way to get maximum relief with minimum effort.  I was ready.  I drew the proverbial line in the sand.  I declared, this far and no farther!  I prepared myself in every way that I could, bracing for the impact of my decision.  And then God spoke.

I was in my devotions one day, reading the Scriptures and praying.  To be honest, I've forgotten what passage it was, but I think it was in the Psalms somewhere.  Perhaps it was just the Word I needed for that particular day, and I didn't have to go back later to remind myself.  I knew what God had said.  I fell on my knees under my desk and cried out to God to confirm in my heart what my eyes had just read.  And the voice I was so familiar with, which I had heard and whose command I had followed on many occasions before, gave me the answer I didn't want to hear.  "Stay," He said.  "You can't leave."

So against all advice, I steeled myself against what was to come.  I made one phone call to the person I trusted most in the world and asked them to pray with me.  I believed if just one person would agree with me in prayer, my circumstances would change, my conflict would be resolved, everything in my life would be right once more.  And I stayed.  I said, "Yes," to the Lord.

Can I tell you, my circumstances didn't change.  The conflict was not resolved.  Mostly it retreated to a place of quiet contention that I accepted as part of God's will for my life.  I lived in my situation for eight more years before God moved in a way to finally deliver me out of Egypt.  And when it was all over, I asked the Lord, "What was that about?  Why didn't you get me out of this when I actually wanted out?"

And with the tenderness of an all-knowing and ever-loving God, He said, "I needed someone to stay."  No pat on the back, no sticker in my book, no "well done thou good and faithful servant."  Just the acknowledgement that I had done what He wanted me to do.

I fantasized as a child about being some great missionary doctor, holding crusades in Africa where thousands were miraculously healed by the power invested in my hands.  But when the reality of God's call set in, I knew immediately and completely what God wanted me to do.  He wanted me to be a pastor.  But it went beyond that.  I knew in my heart that I would be raised up under my Dad's ministry, work with him in a church, and eventually succeed him as pastor.  That's when I was twelve.  At twenty-three, that vision was fulfilled.  After twenty months of serving in ministry with my dad, our district asked him to take over a church in a really bad situation, I became the pastor of my home church.

It was a great experience.  We had revival for four years.  But before I ever became the pastor of my first church, God had shown me another church and told me I would pastor there.  So when the time came for transition, I was ready.  I knew what I was supposed to do.  I made a couple of phone calls, submitted a resume, preached my heart out to a wonderful group of Pentecostal patriarchs, and found myself elected to what I thought was going to be another wave of revival in a new place.  That could not have been farther from the truth.

Without going into detail, let me summarize by saying that my second church died on my watch.  Literally.  I sent some of the sweetest saints I've ever known to heaven, and watch many of the best folks I've ever pastored move off to live with their kids.  I was heartbroken, devastated, shell shocked.  And after two years of that, with a church in shambles and me thinking my ministry was a complete and utter failure, I got my resume together and started looking for places to send it.  But God wouldn't let me.  It's not that He told me no, exactly.  But every time I had the perfect place picked out for my future, I would get an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.  If I didn't respond, uneasiness turned to queasiness, and if that still didn't get my attention, I would wind up in bed for days wrestling with gut-wrenching illness...until I tore up my resume and renewed my commitment to stay.

For five years, I begged God to let me leave that church, but God's only answer was ever, "Stay.  You can't leave."  Finally, one day in great desperation, I spouted off to the Lord, "Fine, I'll stay!  But you have to tell me why."  Let me tell you something I've learned from repeated personal experience, if you're going to ask the Almighty for His reason, you better be prepared to accept it.  With the tenderness of an all-knowing and ever-loving God, He said, "I need someone who will stay."  Staying with things, that's me alright.  I was down on my knees in the dirt of my front yard pulling weeds in hopes that one day grass would grow (it never did).  I bowed my dirty, tear-streaked face and nodded my head in quiet submission.  And I stayed.

Two years later, things had turned around.  The church was growing again, the finances were good, new leadership had been raised up.  I was looking forward to a long and fruitful ministry there.  And that's when God said, "Okay, now you can leave."  So I did.

It was easy to let go.  I had done what God put me there to do.  And while we were rebuilding a congregation, God had been preparing me for what was next.  By then I had spent thirteen years in full-time pastoral ministry.  I was starting to get the hang of it.  I was finally figuring things out.  But God really messed with me that day in the dirt.  I agreed to stay when I wanted to leave, but God started that day to prepare me for the next phase of ministry--the evangelistic field.

"No way," was my first response.  And I had good reasons.  I don't like driving that much.  I don't like being cooped in a car that much.  I don't like being alone that much.  I like seeing the same faces of a familiar crowd Sunday after Sunday.  I like my own house and my own bed.  I don't want to live out of a suitcase in a hotel room.  I spent a year making excuses, and when I got to the end of my reasoning with God, He asked me, "And are you going to go anyway?"

Your already know my answer.

I could tell you many more stories.  I could tell you that I spent three years traveling the length and breadth of this nation, preaching in all kinds of churches in all kinds of places, and I saw some good results.  During that time I walked through one of the darkest periods of my life, but did so with the light of God on my face and came through better off for my faithfulness to God and His Word.  A couple of churches wanted me to be their pastor, but as kindly as I could I told them no.  I knew I was doing what I was supposed to do.  Then the day came when I knew God was preparing me for what was next, to pastor again.  I was praying about where and when and how, thinking I might be better off to start a church where I was living, when one morning He wakes me up and His direction was clear.  After two years of telling a particular church, "No," I was able to pick up the phone, dial the number, and tell them that God's answer was finally, "Yes," and so was mine.

I could tell you that after a year and a half, God released me from that assignment, but I was so ingrained to stay that I failed to listen and respond immediately.  I could not accept that after only eighteen months God was finished with me there.  A year later, a missionary who I greatly respect gave me a prophetic word, not just about the church, but also about a personal matter in my life.  It confirmed what God had been trying to tell me in both cases.  I said, "Yes" to the first and resigned my church.  I had to spend another twelve very frustrated months wrestling with the other matter until I was finally ready to give that up as well.  And all the while I was hesitating to respond to God's direction, my life was in a holding pattern, circling the runway and circling again, and again, and again.  Nothing was working out.  Nothing was going right.

Until I said, "Yes."

One more story, and then I'm done.  It was during those twelve months of waiting that I began preaching at this little church in East Texas.  I was just pulpit supply, ministering occasionally to this congregation because a friend had recommended me, trying to be a blessing to them while they searched for their new pastor.  On day one, they asked me to stay.  And I said, "No."  God hadn't said anything to me about pastoring them.  I preached there again, and they asked me to stay.  And I said, "No."  I still hadn't heard from God.  The third time I preached there, I was convinced it would be my last because they had selected a pastoral candidate to be voted upon.  I would never see those people again.  I wasn't happy about that, but I was happy they were getting a good pastor.  And then God began to deal with me about that church.  He began to fill my heart with words for them, messages they needed to hear.  He gave me a heart for them, and I kept reminding God, "They're about to have a pastor."  I shouldn't have been surprised when they called me again.  They hadn't elected a pastor.  They needed someone to come preach.  Was I available?

"Yes."

That answer changed my life.  I was elected by unanimous consent to a permanent term of office, the first time in my life for both.  Within days, all of the prayers I had been praying, the petitions I had been making, began to be answered.  I let go of my dreams for one way of life, and found God's blessing shining clearly upon another.  I said "Yes" to Lord, and I've never been happier.

Moses: Objections to the Call

But Moses said to God, "Who am I

that I should go to Pharaoh,

and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?"

Exodus 3:11, NKJV

Whatever Moses might have been in his past, whatever education he had, whatever training he had received, whatever position he had been groomed for, those days were long gone.  He was a fugitive, an exile in a desert land, an eighty-year-old man working for his father-in-law with no other ambition, and a heartache that told him he had wasted all his potential and was past his prime.  He was troubled by the affliction of his people, but considered himself powerless to do anything about it.  And then one day while watching his flock of sheep, he sees a mysterious thing--a fire on the mountainside that burns but does not consume.

He approaches the bush, probably with more than a little trepidation, marveling at the shrub that survived the inferno, when from within the blazing glory the Angel of the Lord--what Biblical scholars consider the pre-incarnate Christ--appeared and speaks his name.  We are not told what that voice sounded like.  My technicolor imagination fills in the information gap with a deep, bassy vibrato that is felt on the flesh and within the heart, a low rumbling thunder of sound and sensation that makes the skin prickle and the hair stand on end, a commanding breath of energy and power that stops you in your tracks and draws all your attention upon it.

It called to him, "Moses, Moses!"

And he said, "Here I am."

"Don't come any closer!  In fact, take your shoes off to honor my presence, for the ground upon which you stand is holy." (a slight paraphrase)  Moses didn't ask, but the voice answered anyway, "I am the God of your father--the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (I think you've heard of them--and me)."

Moses hid his face, afraid to look upon God, but there was no way to block out the sound of that voice.  Perhaps cowering on the ground with his cloak wrapped up over his head, trembling and terrified that any moment might be his last, Moses might have asked himself, "Why has God come to speak to me?"  Perhaps this was the day of reckoning, the day that he answered for his crimes, for his sins.  Perhaps God had come at last to collect payment for the life Moses had taken, and the time he had lost.  Perhaps this was the end.  And it some ways it was.  God was giving Moses a new job, an assignment, a commission to fulfill His sovereign will for Moses' life and the lives of numberless others.

"I have seen the oppression of my people and I've heard their cry.  Now I'm going to do something about it.  I have come down to deliver them from Egypt and bring them to their Promised Land.  Now come with me, you're going to lead them!"

Now Moses recovered enough control over his faculties to think, and to speak.  He'd tried once, with the strength of his arm and blade, to help Israel.  He had failed.  He'd spent decades bemoaning his failure, growing more melancholy with each passing day.  He even wrote a song about it, convinced that he had nothing left to give and might as well die.  In his eightieth year of life and fortieth year of exile, this was not the message Moses had expected, nor was it a message he was ready and willing to receive.  In fact, as he considered the Lord's request, his heartfelt objections came to mind.  And he expressed them.

"Who am I to go to Pharaoh?  Who am I to bring Israel out of Egypt?"  I'm nobody.  I'm a washed up old has been.  I've known nothing but sheep for forty years.  God, you want a warrior-prince full of vim, vigor, and vitality.  You don't want me.

O yes I do!  "I will be with you, and when you have brought them out of Egypt, you will come back here and serve Me on this mountain."  In other words, when My will has been fulfilled, I'm bring you back to the place where I called and you objected, just to show you I knew what I was doing.  Even if you didn't."

"But God," Moses continues.  "They're going to want to know Your Name?  What am I supposed to tell them?"  What credentials do I have?  What experience?  I don't even know how to address you properly.  They're going to want to know how I know that I'm called, how I know that I've been sent.  What if they have no confidence in my leadership abilities.  What if they reject me."

"You tell them I AM.  Tell them the God who is everything they need whenever they need me is the one who appeared to you and called you and sent you and will use you.  Tell them the same God that called Abraham out of Ur and promised him Canaan is the God who has sent you.  Tell them the God who sustained Isaac and provided for Jacob and preserved Joseph and protected the children of Israel is the God who has sent you.  They'll follow you then.  And that's when you'll all go to Pharaoh."

Sounds easy right?  I can just hear Moses mumbling to himself.  I'll just go back to my Israelite people and say, "I'm back, follow me!"  I'll march right into the palace that used to be my home and face the son of the man who wanted me dead and tell him God said...and poof, that will be enough!  Yeah, right...

As if in response to Moses inner musings, God said to Moses, "That's exactly what you're going to do.  And when he does not listen to you, when he does not do what I have told you to tell him to do, when he does not honor my will, I'm going to strike mighty Egypt with my Almighty Hand, and they're going to pay you to leave!"

"But God," Moses objected again, "What if they don't believe me?  What if they won't listen?  What if they say You didn't appear to me?"  I don't think I can take that kind of rejection!

God was not daunted by Moses' delays.  He gave Moses three signs in rapid succession that would prove Moses had both been with God and was sent by God.  First was the shepherd's rod that transformed into a snake and back again.  Second was the healthy hand turned leprous and then made whole again.  Third was the pitcher of water turned miraculously to blood.  "They'll believe you have seen me after you do these things!"

"But God," Moses objected again, and I can hear the comic stutter some preachers employ to emphasize Moses confessed ineloquence, "Bu-bu-bu-bu-but G-g-g-g-g-, but God!  I'm not eloquent.  I'm slow of speech and slow of tongue."  I don't talk good.  Listen to me stutter.  How can I talk to Pharaoh, I can't even talk to you.  Much.

"I made that mouth," God replied.  "I made it, and I'm going to use it.  I'm going to fill it with words and teach you what to say."

"But God!" And this was Moses' final objection, "Can't you just, you know, send somebody else."  I don't want to go.  I'm not good enough.  I don't have the skills.  I'm really uncomfortable with the call.  I'm afraid of this assignment.  I've heard all you've said, and I know who you are and what you can do, but please Please PLEASE can't you just send someone else.  Besides me.

The Bible says the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses.  I have to wonder.  Did the burning bush blaze brighter?  Did the fire burn hotter?  Did God raise His voice to Moses' resistance?  Almost in exasperation, if God can be exasperated, God said to Moses, "Fine.  This is what I'm going to do.  Your brother Aaron can speak well.  I'm going to make him your assistant, your spokesman, and I'm going to tell you what to say and do, and you're going to tell him, and he's going to do it.  Now go to meet him, and take your stick with you.  We're going to need that stick."

So Moses went...

Have you ever argued with God about what He's asked you to do?  I can tell you from personal experience that it doesn't do any good.  When you get through your list of objections, complaints, and questions, when you've expressed all your doubts and fears, when you've told God all the reasons that He's wrong and you can't possible do what He's asked you to do (as if He was giving you a choice to begin with), God comes back with a simple reply.

"I hear what you're saying, and I'm able to work with that.   You're the man (or woman) for the job, and I don't care how you feel about it, I still want you.  Now what are you going to do?"

My answer was always like Moses.  "Yes, of course, Lord.  How can I say no?"

More About the Call

"If you build it, he will come"

The Voice to Ray Kinsella, Field of Dreams, 1989

This movie is still somewhat of a mystery to me, even though I've watched it at least a score of times.  It never gets old, and never fails to get to me.  Though not anything even resembling a Christian movie, I think it's a perfect illustration of the Call of God on our lives.  Think about it:  a mysterious voice whispers to an Iowa corn farmer and gives him a vision of a baseball field.  He and his family risk everything to build that ballpark where the spirits of dead baseball players can come to once again play the game they all loved so much.  Ray Kinsella puts it all on the line to follow the call, bringing restoration to a disgraced baseball team, hope to a disillusioned activist who has lost his way, enlightenment to a man who always wondered what if, and reconciliation between a father and son.  What compelling imagery!

The gifts and calling of God are "without repentance", the Bible says.  They are irrevocable.  God places within each of us the talents He wants to develop, if we will surrender our lives and follow His will.  God gifts some to be artisans, others designers, others caregivers, others builders.  God gives people the ability to be teachers and entrepreneurs and entertainers and producers, farmers, writers, protectors, defenders.  He enables and empowers leaders and servants and craftsmen and stewards.  Every individual has a unique purpose, a God-made plan for their lives, a destiny.  And God wants to direct that destiny in order to bless us and make us a blessing to others.

But God also places a call upon every life, and it is the same call to all:  Come, and Go.  Come to me.  Come with me.  Come and let me change you.  Come and let me help you.  Come and let me mold you into My image and likeness so that you will be like Me.  Then Go for me.  Go into the world.  Go with the gospel message.  Go into the highways and the hedges.  Go and work in my field.  That is a universal calling, a command regardless of our gifts and pursuits.  Every person who responds to God's call to come receives God's call to go.  We are ambassadors of Christ in every station of life.

My Dad did a little bit of everything, both before and after he got saved.  He was a railroad telegrapher, an undercover narcotics cop, a night patrolman, a welder, an electrician, a brick layer, a construction foreman.  He could do practically anything he put his mind to, and did.  After he met Jesus, he continued in construction for nearly a decade, but while working to build oil refineries in the Texas Panhandle, he was also working for the Lord.  Armed with a palm-sized Bible and full of the Spirit, he began to share the Good News with his coworkers.  Some received and were Born Again.  Others rejected and continued in their ways.  But he was always a witness.  He led entire crews of Laotian and Central American refugees to the Lord.  He converted drug-dealing truck drivers.  Everywhere he worked, everywhere he went, He told people about Jesus.

Then God called him into full-time, what some have termed "vocational", ministry.  He left the workforce of the world and started pastoring churches, because that's what God wanted him to do.,  He didn't seek after good, big, healthy churches.  He took the hard ones, the burned over fields, the churches on the verge of closure and death.  He took responsibility for handfuls of little old people with one foot on heaven's doorstep, prayed for them and preached to them, all the while bringing more people to the Lord and into the church.  He had to fight for every ministry he ever had, and it did so because he knew what God had told him to do.  He went to Russia three times, and into Mexico countless times.  He left every church in far better shape than when he came.  When he died unexpectedly at the age of forty-nine after twenty-two years of serving the Lord with all his heart, it was with no reservation that we could say, "He fought the good fight, he finished his course, he kept the faith."

In other words, he did what God called him to do.

That was my example.  And I had many other fine examples who showed me how to fulfill the call of God on my life.  I've spent twenty-four years in full-time vocational ministry, with additional time served in the secular workforce when necessity or desire demanded it.  In case you think I've never done anything else, I put in several years at a Tru-Value Hardware store.  I sold, among other things, hardware, farm supplies, plumbing fixtures, gardening tools, paint, fencing, guns and ammo, techie gadgets, appliances, and manure.  I waxed floors, stacked lumber and pipe, counted inventory, ran computer reports, and stocked shelves.  I worked in a bank as a temp.  I sold pianos for a season.  I swept floors and cleaned toilets at a large church for six months.  I assisted a plumber once.  I sometimes substitute in the public school system.  And those are just the things I've gotten paid to do.  There are lots of other things I volunteered to do.

But regardless of what else I was doing with my life, I always tried to fulfill the call of God on my life.  You see, everyone's gifting is different, but every Christian's calling is the same:  to be God's representative in a world that desperately needs Him, to love and to serve, to proclaim the truth of His gospel to everyone everywhere, and ultimately to lead people to Jesus,  You don't have to be an ordained preacher to proclaim the gospel.  You don't have to be a theologian or religious expert to tell people about Jesus.  You just have to know Jesus and follow Him wherever he leads.

Moses: The Call of God

So when the LORD saw that Moses turned aside to look,

God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, 

"Moses, Moses!"  

And Moses said, "Here I am."

Exodus 3:4, NKJV

I didn't have a Burning Bush experience on my way into the ministry.  I didn't see a vision of God with angels singing in the temple like Isaiah.  I didn't hear a voice calling my name in the night like Samuel.  No prophet came to my hometown to choose me over all my brothers and anoint me as king like David.  I didn't meet Jesus in a blast of light with thunderous voice like Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road.  I just always had a sense of God's call upon my life.

My dad gave his life to Jesus when I was three-and-a-half years old, and immediately he began to evangelize his family--father, mother, grandparents, wife, and me, his only son.  If there was one thing I learned in those growing up years from three to six, it was that I needed Jesus in my life.  I was a bad boy without Him, on my way to a devil's hell if I didn't change.  That may seem like a harsh message or a scarring experience for a child at such a tender age, but then, if you haven't heard my story, you can't imagine how bad I was.  I was a stubborn, rebellious, lying, thieving, rock-throwing, tire-puncturing, cat-drowning kid, like a serial killer in the making.  I came from a long line of like minded ancestors.  I can tell you with all certainty, from the vantage point of forty years past, that I did indeed need Jesus in my life.

And one Sunday night in September, in Nineteen Hundred Seventy Eight, as the pastor gave an extended appeal to those who needed Jesus in their lives, I went forward.  I responded to an invitation, knelt at the altar with my pastor, and followed him in a prayer of repentance and acceptance--repenting of my sin and accepting Christ as my savior.  That day, I was Born Again, freed from sin, and God changed my cat-killing ways.  From that day until this, I have never wavered in my belief, never faltered in my faith.  Sure, I've made plenty of mistakes, committed sin, done stupid things of which I am regretful.  But I have never turned my back on God or the Lord Jesus Christ.  I have always wanted to serve Him, and I have no desire to be or do anything different with the rest of my life.  I'm saved, and I really do love the Lord.

Early on, I recognized the call of God on my life.  My first sermon was preached atop a kindergarten chair shortly after I was saved, telling all my little Baptist friends that they needed Jesus too.  My first acts of evangelism were on the playground and in the gym, armed with a small Bible and a zeal to get everyone to heaven.  My first convert was my best friend, who let me lead him in a prayer to repent and receive Jesus.  The first independent prayers of my recollection are prayers that got answered.  I saw miracles early on that reinforced my fledgling faith.  And from childhood I knew that God wanted me to serve Him with my life, my whole life, for the rest of my life.  I'm not sure when I first verbalized that, but I know by the age of eight, I expressed a desire to be a missionary, and not just any missionary, but a missionary doctor who held healing crusades in Africa that healed the multitudes, just like Jesus.

I was baptized in the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues at the age of twelve.  Later that year, I acknowledged an awareness of God's call on my life to be a preacher of the Gospel, just like my Dad who was entering ministry.  I remember those adolescent years where I wanted to be just like my Dad, where I imagined that I would follow him in a pastorate sometime, somewhere.  A woman of God prophesied over me, assuring me of God's gift and call upon my life, and I received that as the will of the Lord.  But during my teen years, I witnessed a dark side to ministry--well, ministry politics--that soured me on pursuing that course with my life.  I still felt called to lead, to do something significant that would help lots of people, to be a forefront kind of person, and I envisioned an education in law that would lead to a career in politics that would lead me to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the District of Columbia.  I thought I would be president of the United States by now!  I rejected the call of God on my life and pursued a path of my own design.  But God would not let me go.

God was dealing with my heart while I was in my first semester of college.  One night, I attended a revival service with people from my church to hear an evangelist I remembered from my youth.  At the end of the preaching and the invitation, the man of God gave a clear Word regarding those who were running from the call, ending with this simple demand:  If you know that God is calling you into ministry, and you are willing to obey, come to the platform NOW!  Without hesitation, I stepped out of my pew and went forward in obedience to the call, and I never looked back.  It took a few more life shaking events to get me fully back on track--the sudden end of a relationship I thought would last forever; a disastrous second semester in college that threatened my scholarship status; an a strange conversation with a lesbian-atheist-anarchist professor who had taken an interest in me as a student.  When she told me that I had to open my mind to what was being taught in her classroom or fail the class and eventually fail to graduate from college, I heard the Holy Spirit speaking to my heart saying, "If you listen to this, you are selling your soul to the devil."  That was all the advice I needed.  I withdrew that day and prepared for Bible College.

It was at Southwestern Assemblies of God University that I had the first life-changing experiences with God since my adolescence.  I began to pray and encounter God in a way I never had before.  The gifts God had placed in my life from my formation in my mother's womb began to flame, fanned by my surroundings and those men and women of God who had surrounded me.  I began to read the Word with new levels of understanding.  Something powerful happened in my life that is best described in the words of my preacher Daddy:  "I don't know what happened down there, but before you went you couldn't play the piano very well, and you certainly couldn't preach.  But now you play the piano and preach under the anointing!"

I left college to pursue full time ministry twenty-four years ago this month.  I've pastored four very different churches and worked in two others.  I traveled the length and breadth of this nation as an evangelist for three years.  I've served my community and my denomination in many different capacities.  Everything I do, I do for the Lord.  I do it because I want to be useful in the kingdom.  I do it because I am called!

But I still never had an experience like Moses at the burning bush.

He was eighty years old.  Half of his life had been spent in preparation for Pharaoh-ship; the other half as a shepherd in exile.  Forty years had passed since he had seen his home in Egypt, or his people Israel.  He had moved his father-in-law's sheep from pasture to pasture in a constant cyclic circuit, dabbling with poetry and perhaps recording the oral traditions of his family.  He married and fathered a couple of sons.  His single surviving Psalm suggests he felt his life a waste and his future a void.  And then one day...

While leading the flock on the backside of the desert, around the base of Horeb which was known as the Mountain of God, Moses glimpsed something out of the ordinary in the distance.  There was a flicker of fire on the mountainside.  That in itself was probably not of particular significance; it was the desert, and sometimes a spark would set the dried out grass and shrubbery ablaze.  What caught Moses attention was the extraordinary realization that with a flame of fire in the midst of the bush, the bush was not consumed!  Moses drew near to  examine the mystery, and in the midst of the flame, the LORD appeared and began to speak to him.

God called him by name, a name so nice He said it twice:  Moses, Moses!  And when Moses responded, "Here am I," the LORD said, Don't come any closer until you take your shoes off, for the place where you stand is holy ground.  I am the God of your father--the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!  And that is how Moses received his call--a burning bush, a booming voice, a beckoning to worship and to serve.  In the next few verses, God told Moses exactly what He had in mind for the rest of Moses' life.

"I have seen the oppression of my people in Egypt.  I have heard their cry.  I know their sorrows."

"I have come down to deliver them out of Egypt and into the Promised land."

"I am sending you to Pharaoh as my personal representative, to lead my people out."

What a calling!

Moses: The Lost Years

The days of our lives are seventy years;

and if by reason of strength they are eighty years,

yet their boast is only labor and sorrow;

for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

Moses, Psalm 90:10, NKJV

What was Moses doing during those forty years of exile in the deserts of Midian?  He married and had a couple of kids.  He tended sheep.  Perhaps it was here that he began to compile the book of Genesis, based on oral histories learned from his mother and his father-in-law (for Jethro was a descendant of Abraham, too), from visions and divine revelation given directly by God.  If Moses was responsible for writing the story of Job, it might have been here in the Arabian deserts that he first heard the tale of a great man of faith and how God allowed him to be tested to prove that his faith and perseverance were real.  And Moses dabbled in poetry, writing this powerful yet grief-stricken psalm of a wasted life.

Moses was schooled early by his mother's teachings--not the daughter of Pharaoh who adopted him from the Nile, but the daughter of Levi who bore him, nursed him at her breast, and taught him at her knee.  He learned the stories of his people, how in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; how after the fall of man became so complete that every life on earth was corrupted, save one; how a faithful man and his family built a great ark in which all life was preserved through those on board; how God called the patriarch Abraham out of a family and land of idolatry to follow Him to a land that He would give him; how God used the evil machinations of Abraham's great-grandchildren to affect the salvation of His Chosen People.  

I'm sure dwelling in the desert gave Moses lots of time to think about his life, the opportunities he had been given, the choices he had made, all of the steps along life's pathway that had led him to here.  And I'm sure Midian was not where he had envisioned spending the best years of his strength, tending someone else's sheep in someone else's pasture.  At forty he had been in his prime, positioned for power and prestige in the most powerful kingdom of the age.  And in a single day, he lost it all to become the most hated and hunted man in known civilization.  Thirty years had passed him by, and like a melancholy scribbler with too much time on his hands, he laments his stage in life.

His mistakes had cast him into the hands of the eternal and everlasting God, the sovereign over all creation who regarded time as irrelevant and next to whom man was immaterial.  Human weakness gave way to sin, sin incurred wrath, wrath resulted in death.  Moses must have sensed his own mortality, a seventy-year-old shepherd with no dreams, no potential, no desires, only memories saddened with mistakes and shadowed by the passage of time, expectation of impending death looming near every thought.  

Life had already been long, and the years to eighty made it seem longer still.  He had started out with a bang, only to end as a beat-up, busted-up, broken down old man.  His years, his education, his training, his potential, his ability to do anything significant for his people or contribute anything significant to their deliverance had all come to naught, dried up in the desert, baked by the sun, stalked by the vultures that feasted on fallen prey.  His life was practically over.

But here was the cry of his heart:  Come back, O Lord!  Come back!  Hasn't it been long enough?  Have mercy on your servants and satisfy us with your mercy!  Moses wanted to rejoice again in the goodness of God, to experience gladness that would make up for the heartache.  In his old age, Moses wanted to see the work of God's hands, experience the glory of God's presence.  Moses still wanted to be used by God, even if he considered himself all used up.

At seventy, Moses was still ten years away from receiving the answer to his prayers.  But God was listening.  God knew exactly where Moses was, confident that Moses would still be there when God's plan was ready for him.  Because even if Moses felt like the years of his life, numbered three-score-and-ten, had been wasted, God still had a plan for his life.  God still had a destiny for Moses to fulfill.  We who serve the Lord should never consider our life a loss, even if we haven't lived up to our perceived potential or seen our dreams come to pass.  If we are still alive, it is because God still has something for us to do.

Let us be found faithful in what we've been given to do, until God comes along and calls us to something else!

Continuing Ed

"All of my training has prepared me for this moment."

Rhino the Hamster, Bolt

My education began at my mother's side while she patiently taught me my numbers and letters and shapes and colors.  I suppose that's how most kids start their learning.  There were many life lessons to be learned in those early days, too.  Some were taught by instruction; others by correction; and still others by experience.  Lessons like:  Don't put the industrial magnet on the front of Mom's new avocado green refrigerator; it won't come off.  Unless you slide it, which you also shouldn't do because of the grooves it leaves in the avocado green pain.  And don't then try to dispose of said industrial magnet outside in the dark when you don't know who might be standing out there.  I honestly didn't know Dad was in the exact spot in the ditch where I tossed the magnet.  Come to think of it, what was Dad doing in the ditch in the dark?  I never thought to ask as I was running for my life, and I guess it's far too late now.  The man's been in heaven twenty years, and it never occurred to me to ask until just now.

Anyway, my education began with my parents.  They instilled in me from my earliest recollection an unwavering love for God and His Word.  They taught me to pray.  They told me I needed to have Jesus in my life as my personal savior.  They showed me how to live the righteous life.  They demonstrated faithfulness and dedication to the Lord my entire life, which translated as faithfulness and dedication in every area of life.  They corrected bad behavior--like lying, stealing, throwing rocks, and drowning cats--so that I would know not to do those things again.  And all that was before I went to school, where I learned other things.

I had good educators in my life.  Sharon Britten accepted the precocious Kindergarten evangelist with a gentle if not-always-sure-about-this smile.  Patty Campbell kept me busy with learning cursive when I already knew what she was teaching everyone else.  Vicki Maupin Stephenson and Karla Howell taught me to love reading books of every kind...starting with The Enormous Egg and Where the Red Fern Grows.  Caren Kensing encouraged my creativity and gave me the greatest appreciation for history.  Kay May challenged me to know what I believed; I hope that she appreciates now how I've stood by my convictions.  Brenda Dahl and Scott Murray and Betty Armstrong proved to me that math could be fun.  Kent Hargis and Randy Robertson demonstrated that faith didn't have to compromise with science.  Sharon Stiles and Darlene Birkes and Harvielee Moore and Dick Wilkins molded the young writer in me.  Coaches Terry Cox and Windy Williams knew how to involve me through my strengths rather than prey on my weaknesses.  Jean Smith and Joan Swanson guided me through a lot of teenage angst.  Harry Carson taught me to love music.  To mention Harry and Joan again, they helped me come out of a rather reserved shell and use my talents.  Robert Matheny left a lasting positive impression on me, though I cannot for the life of me remember why.  Gene Brown gave me a deeper love for the word of God.  Leroy Bartel gave me a deeper appreciation for the presence of God.  Delmar Guynes gave me a deeper understanding of the ways of God.  Dan Langston gave me the tools to properly interpret Scripture that I still use every day in the ministry.  Amy Alexander encouraged me to keep writing.  And of course, I am forever indebted to Nancy Warr, that professor of everything I fundamentally oppose, the antithesis of who I am and what I believe, who was unwittingly used by God to set me on the right path.  

As for my spiritual education, I had the best pastors in Gene Allen, Bill Smith, Chris Snidow, and my own dad Bryan Stafford.  Along with many others who poured into my life and contributed to my development as a man and as a minister, these always have been and continue to be mentors of the highest caliber.

Without boasting too much, let me say here that I was always smart, sometimes too much for my own good.  I learned quickly and always wanted to know more.  Once I started reading, there was no stopping me.  I read everything that caught my interest, sometimes reading things that were far beyond my capacity to comprehend.  I have to admit, I read things that I shouldn't have, and probably passed up reading things that I should have.  I graduated high school in the top 5% of my class; I'll confess now that I never wanted to work hard enough to be First, or even Second.  Kim & Devri & Jennifer & Kim deserved those spots, who not only were highly intelligent but also far more diligent than me.

I went to University on a full academic scholarship, but gave it up because I wasn't in the will of God there.  There were probably less than a handful of people who truly understood and supported my decision to leave, but I knew it was divinely directed.  In retrospect, I have long lamented the fact that I was running from the call of God on my life during my late teens.  I wasn't backslidden, but I wasn't exactly obedient either.  Until God started redirecting my path.  I'm thankful that I had learned from my parents early on that there is always a way back into the will of God!  Perhaps I should have gone to Bible School (as we used to call what is now Southwestern Assemblies of God University) to start with, but I didn't.  I experienced a lot of confusion and pain that might have all been unnecessary had I surrendered earlier to the call.  Nevertheless, when I finally agreed with the Lord to pursue ministry as my calling and vocation, He made the way, put me in the right place at the right time with the right people to get exactly what He needed me to have.

My stay at SAGU was one semester long.  When I went home for Christmas, my Dad's youth pastor resigned and everyone recognized the need for me to stay and do the job, most of all me.  I had always known I would work with my Dad in ministry.  The moment we heard that Jimmy wasn't coming back, I knew it was God's will for me to stay.  The powers that be at SAGU didn't understand, and certainly didn't agree with my decision to leave without finishing my education.  What they didn't know is that I received at SAGU that which God had needed to give me, if He could just get me in position to receive.  There were multiple spiritual experiences in those short four months that completely revolutionized my life.  If I may speak of the anointing without going into a deep theological study, that mark of God's presence and call and gifting and approval upon my life was all I needed to make me the man He wanted me to be.  I completed the course work through correspondence classes that were required for my credentialing as an Assemblies of God minister, but even though I've often considered it, I have never returned the classroom of formal education.

I value education.  Today, 24 years after I left the University, I continue to learn.  I continue to read and study.  I continue to seek out those who can teach me something I do not know, or reinforce that which I think I do.  I continue to evaluate the path I have walked--the successes, the failures, the crises, the conflicts, the decisions, and the mistakes--to learn from my experiences and the experiences of others.  I continue to be mentored and guided by those who have been at this far longer than me, because education never stops.  If you stop learning, you stop growing, and soon become irrelevant and inept.  I absolutely value education, I just recognize that there is far more to it than book learning and paper writing and earning degrees.  I could have all the degrees academia could offer, but I believe I would still be right where I am doing what I'm doing.  Because far more important than knowing stuff is knowing that you are in the will of God for your life.

And as I sit here today, I know that all of my training has prepared me for this.  Whatever God wants me to do in my present stage in life and place on this planet, I am ready.  2018, bring it on!  I am ready.  And when I don't know what else to say or do, I am confident that the God whose Son has saved me and whose Spirit has filled me is more than able to teach me everything else I need to know.  It may be in His word; it may be in a book; it may be through a person; it may be through an experience.  But God will see me through today and prepare me for tomorrow if I will just stay teachable and learn from Him!

Moses: The Education of a Sheep Herder

Now Moses kept the flock

of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian.

And he led the flock to the back of the desert,

and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

Exodus 3:1, NKJV

I don't know if you could say Moses was born to lead, but he was certainly raised to it.  

The youngest of three siblings, his life was threatened from birth by the evil dictates of an Egyptian Pharaoh.  He was caught in the violent throes of a cultural upheaval as the rulers of Egypt's 18th Dynasty continued to sweep away the vestiges of their Asiatic predecessors  Though his ancestors had been instrumental in the salvation and preservation of not only Egypt but the entire ancient world, Moses was born to Hebrews who had been enslaved, oppressed by a king bent on annihilating the Asiatic imprint the Hyksos and their Semitic allies had left on the Hamitic landscape.  Honestly, this was a rivalry that stretched back a thousand years to Noah and his sons as they came off the ark.  And Moses came into the world at the height of this conflict.

The standing law of the land was that Egyptian midwives would automatically murder every Hebrew boy born.  When the midwives failed to comply, the Pharaoh decreed that the entirety of the population was now responsible for carrying out his fiendish plans for the Hebrews.  They were commanded to take every son born among the Hebrews and throw them into the Nile  It was in this inclement social atmosphere that Moses was born.

He was the great-grandson of the patriarch Levi, born to parents who found the courage to hide their child from the Egyptian death squads.  For three months, Amram and Jochebed kept their beautiful child concealed, an act of faith that earned them a place among the heroes of Hebrews 11.  The mother made a basket out of bulrushes gathered from the river bank, sealed it with pitch, and after placing her tiny boy into its confines, set it afloat with the belief that God would take care of her son.  Divine providence directed that baby's ark into the reeds near the place where an Egyptian princess came to bathe.  The princess hears the cries of the infant, sends a servant to fetch the basket in the reeds, and after one look at the precious child within, she decides to raise this threatened Hebrew babe as her own.

And by a coincidence that could only have been arranged by the Lord, the baby is placed in the care of a Hebrew nursemaid, his very own mother!  We are never told what his given Hebrew name might have been, but his foster mother, the daughter of Pharaoh, named him Moses.   It means drawn out of the water, but is also a variation of the royal family names used often in the 18th Dynasty--names such as Ahmose and Thutmose.  The princess entrusted her new son into Hebrew care and paid generously for the service, thus providing a solid and safe foundation for the rearing of Egypt's future king.  For the princess who adopted Moses was most likely Hatshepsut, daughter and granddaughter of kings, both sister and wife to a king, step-mother of a king, and only the second woman to rule Egypt in her own right after her brother/husband died and before her step-son was old enough to reign.

Moses' education began at the breast and on the knee of his Hebrew mother, who instilled in him the stories of their patriarchal ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  She undoubtedly told him the saga of the twelve sons of Jacob, those unruly men who envied their youngest brother Joseph and sold him into slavery, only to meet him again later when he had risen to the most powerful position in Egypt in service to the Pharaoh.  And she told him of the deaths of the patriarchs, and the prophecies made about their return to their true homeland, a land flowing with milk and honey, the territory promised them by God Almighty.

Then the time came for Moses to return to Pharaoh's house, the same Pharaoh who had ordered his destruction as an infant now watched as the rescued Hebrew slave was brought into the bosom of his family to be raised with his own children and grandchildren, raised as a prince of Egypt and groomed to be king.  The Bible tells us that "Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds." (Acts 7:22).  From Josephus we learn that Moses was highly intelligent, excelling above all his contemporaries in learning, and that he was extraordinarily handsome.  With his mother ruling Egypt, Moses was promoted into high military command and led the Egyptians in their conquest of Ethiopia, perhaps even taking the daughter of the Ethiopian king as a war-bride.  As Moses reached maturity and the height of power in Egypt, he probably seemed prime to ascend the throne.

But God had other plans.  Moses' education was not over.  His mother died, his step-brother became king, and likely his own position in the kingdom may have been threatened.  Though forty years old and a member of the ruling house of Egypt, the Bible says that Moses went out among his own people, the Israelites, and witnessed firsthand the cruelty of their Egyptian oppression.  Seeing a Hebrew slave being attacked by an Egyptian taskmaster, Moses defended and avenged the abuse of his kinsman.  He assumed the Hebrew slaves would rally to his banner and let him deliver them by the strength of his own hand, but they rejected his leadership.  Additionally, his murder of the Egyptian brought the wrath of the Pharaoh down upon him, and Moses was forced to flee.

And that's how Moses found himself as an outcast in the land of Midian, an Arab neighbor to mighty Egypt.  After an heroic encounter with some shepherds in defense a priest's daughters and their sheep herds, Moses was welcomed into Jethro's home, family, and employ.  He marries the oldest girl Zipporah and likely experiences a revival of his childhood spirituality under the mentoring of an old-fashioned patriarch.  Midian was one of the sons of Abraham by his concubine Keturah, born in Abraham's old age but undoubtedly raised with the same faith.  His descendants mingled with those of his brothers in the territory south of Abraham's Promised Land, and that is where Moses ended up in the second third of his life.

He probably thought it was all over.  He had wasted forty years of education and training, thrown away his position and experience in a moment of hasty, passionate indignation.  As the Scriptures say, the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God.  He had not delivered Israel from captivity and slavery.  His people were still in bondage, still crying out in their oppression for a deliverer.  And Moses was public enemy number one in the land he had been raised to rule.  Now came the time of deep reflection, of pondering his past with no glimpse of a future beyond moving his father-in-law's sheep to the next patch of grass.

Even though he didn't know it at the time, Moses was still continuing his education.  Read up on sheep and shepherding, and you will discover that sheep need a leader who is gentle and courageous, willing to comfort and correct them, to guide and to guard them.  When the sheep go astray, the good shepherd will hunt them down and bring them back to the flock.  When the flock is in danger, the good shepherd will lay down his own life to protect his sheep.  He knows where the best pastures are, and the still waters.  He knows his sheep, and the sheep know him.  Forty years as a prince, forty years as a shepherd.  These were just the circumstances God employed to prepare Moses for the greatest challenge of his life--delivering his people out of Egypt's bondage and leading them to the Promised Land.

Lights

Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens

to divide the day from the night;

and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and for years;

]and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth";

and it was so.

Genesis 1:14-15

I've been studying the Creation account this week, Genesis 1:1-2:3 which covers the six days of God's creative work and the seventh day of rest.  It's an awesome passage of Scripture, revealing to us so many foundational principles of faith.  It is the beginning of a Biblical, dare I say, Christian worldview.    Here are the key elements of belief and conduct, written down, preserved, transcribed, translated, and published for our benefit.  This is the start.

In the beginning, God.  And God said.  And God did.  And God instructed.  And God saw.  And God blessed.  An entire chapter that shows us the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient Godhead at work, actively conceiving, communicating, and carrying out the eternal plan of creation.  I've discussed the creation in depth in earlier posts (from 2016), a fascinating study into the origin of the universe and everything in it, so I won't take the time to do it again here.  Suffice it to say, God created everything that is, that was, that ever will be.  It's incredible and inspiring to think that we serve a God who did all that, and who also cares for and is directly involved with us.

As I looked at this passage every day this past week, making notes and Scriptural connections, these few verses caught my attention.  It's worth pointing out that God lit this planet for four days without the assistance of the sun, moon, and stars.  How did He do it, you might ask?  What was light when God said, "Let there be light?"  Jesus tells us in John 8:12, "I am the light of the world.  He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life."  For those first three days of history as recorded in Genesis, the earth was illuminated merely by the presence of Almighty God.

But on the fourth day, God added something.  He drew back the veil of His presence and revealed the stars He had flung into space.  He didn't say, "Let there be light" again.  He said, "Let there be lights."  And the sun and moon and stars of the heavens shone down their light on this little blue planet.  God had created them and put them in place according to His will, and now He has bestowed their light on the center of His creation.  Furthermore, He has done it with a plan and a purpose.  He gave the lights of heaven a job to do, a job that has not ended and never will.

Those lights were there to divide the day from the night.

They were to be for signs and seasons, for days and for years.

They were to give light on the earth.

It also adds, in verse 18, that the greater lights--the sun and the moon--were there to rule over the day and night, and to divide light from darkness.

Okay, you say.  So God created stars and moons and planets.  So what?  I've read over those verses a hundred times, probably more, and I've never thought anything more about them than that.  Until now.

God set them in the heavens to divide day from night and light from darkness.  They announce signs and seasons and mark the times.  They give light to the earth.  Am I crazy, or does this sound like the Great Commission to believers?  Hasn't God placed us here for the same reasons?

Jesus said to His disciples in Matthew 5:14, "You are the light of the world!"  Don't hide the light, He told them, but sit up high and shine brightly.  In this world that is darkened by sin, we are here to shine the light of Christ upon it.  We fulfill the words of the prophet who said, "Those who sat in darkness will see a great light."  We are the light bringers, the burning lamps of God's word and righteousness bringing illumination to those in spiritual night and leading them on to the day!

Jesus said to His disciples in Mark 16:17, "These signs shall follow those who believe."  He gave His followers power to work miracles and show signs and wonders in the earth to confirm the message of light.  Just as the circuit of the constellations tells the gospel in the heavens--from the humble virgin to the triumphant lion--we also are here to reveal the gospel message to the world.  We are here to read the signs of the times, to redeem the times, to know what season the world is in.  We are God's signs in the earth as surely as the stars are his signs in the skies.

And through the Apostle Paul, Jesus told His disciples in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-10, that though times and seasons are completely in the hands of God, there is a difference between children of the day and children of the night, between those who walk in darkness and those who walk in the light.  We have been saved on this Earth to show forth the difference.

You and I are the lights of God, set in the heavens to declare His handiwork.  Let us be the lights!