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!