When Your Life Unravels...
Do you ever feel like someone took the neatly woven life you worked so hard for, and with the yank of one end of the yarn, your life as you knew it unraveled? Or maybe like the picture above, everything you built crumbled?
Many of us live with shattered dreams wondering where we went wrong. So how do we cope when life doesn’t go as planned? What should our response look like?
Moses’s life did not go as planned either, yet his life was greatly used by God. Moses is mentioned over 800 times in the Bible as well as in the “Hall of Faith” in Hebrews 11. This is a man’s life I want to study.
Neatly Made Plans
If you had known me in my early twenties, you would have said, “that girl has a good head on her shoulders.” You would probably have known I was a “Christian.” I might have even “witnessed” to you.
However, if you could peer into my soul, you would have seen a different picture. Fear and anxiety deep within which evidenced itself in keeping a firm grip on my life and decisions.
What this really meant was – I was not giving control of my life to the God I claimed to believe in. I was certainly not submitting every part of my life to Him.
Enter Moses, My Protege, Who Learned How to Cope When Life Doesn't Go As Planned
Maybe I was a little like Moses. Exodus 2:11-12 tells us of how Moses killed an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew brother. Moses had an admirable sense of justice and compassion for his Hebrew people.
However, instead of seeking God for guidance, he took matters into his own hands. (okay, so for the record the comparison only goes so far!)
After this event, Moses’s life as he knew it – palace, status, and all- unravels as he runs to Midian in fear of his own life.
Up until then, he was trained and groomed to become the next Pharaoh of Egypt (according to Josephus)…
~ Enduring Word Commentary
An Unraveled Life Becomes a Beautiful Tapestry
My life as I knew it unraveled as I sat in a courtroom and the judge granted a divorce leaving me with a changed status, without a job, and with two sons under the age of three.
In his book Run with the Horses, Eugene Peterson writes a synopsis of how I treated God at the time.
Our compulsive timetables collide with God’s leisurely providence. We tell God not only what to do but when to do it. We take him seriously – why else would we be praying? – but we take ourselves more seriously, telling him exactly what he must do for us and when.
God's Gracious Provision
The Bible tells us of how God provides for Moses in Exodus 2:15-22 giving him a new family and a new career. It is through Moses’s same sense of justice and compassion that he enters the family of the Midian priest.
These were admirable characteristics that once shaped by God led the nation out of slavery.
God worked miracles in providing for my small family too, including providing a miraculous job and a home which we warmly named “our little green house.”
Allowing The Master Weaver to Pick Up The Tangled Mess
Moses spends the next 40 years of his life tending flocks for his father-in-law.
How was that time spent? What was Moses learning?
I believe God trained him, shaping him for his future. God had a plan to deliver the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt using Moses – it was just a different plan than how Moses had envisioned.
As I allowed the tight grip of control to loosen on my human-made plans, I came across this quote from Martin Luther which has become a life motto for me.
How Well Do You Know Jesus?
The question for us boils down to – how well do we know Jesus? Well enough to trust him with all aspects of our life, from the tiny details to the big decisions?
In Exodus 3, Moses receives his calling and his response is: “Here I am.” Moses seems comfortable conversing with God, and although he questions and objects, Moses submits to God’s leading without the foreknowledge of how God will deliver and provide.
God tells Moses that Pharaoh will chase after them, but he does not tell Moses how they will be delivered. How would they escape from the Egyptians chasing after them? How would Moses provide food or water in the desert?
The questions are endless. Do you relate?
What Knowing Your Guide Looks Like?
Fast forward to the last 40 years of Moses’ life spent following God’s plan and we read…
So the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. Exodus 33:11
What a beautiful relationship Moses had with God. This same kind of relationship is offered to us through Jesus.
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. John 15:13-15
In Run with the Horses, Peterson gives us a visual picture of how we may treat God in the section titled “The Intimacy of Prayer.”
Picture a fine restaurant where you go to meet God. Is God sitting across the table from you where you engage in an intimate conversation – talking, listening, giving Him your complete attention?
Or do we treat God like the waiter? He is a participant in the dinner, but someone we “give orders to, make complaints, and maybe, at the end, give thanks.”
Once I submitted my life to Jesus, I grieved what I had missed out on. But with God, it is never too late, it is a constant growing, a constant resubmitting because if you are like me, you sometimes try to take over again. Moses did it too. (Numbers 20:11 )
If giving up control raises angst in your spirit, I leave you with this beautiful definition of submission from the Spiritual Disciplines Handbook.
Godly submission is rooted in God’s good and loving intentions for each one of us. Submission is not something God forces down our throats – because forcing people to submit is oppression. Therefore, biblical submission does not trap people in abusive relationships that rob them of their freedom. Submission is a way we allow God’s kingdom agenda to shape our choices, relationships, and vocations. And it always works in conjunction with our personal freedom.
Would you invite Jesus to sit across the table from you?