You know the kind of day I'm referring to. You have endured many such days. Whether a salaried employee or an hourly wage earner you know the monotony of the same old routines. It is tempting to cast a longing eye at greener pastures. To find a change of pace. Something new. Something more exciting.
On this very ordinary day something extraordinary happened. Some might call it bizarre. It could definitely be classified as unusual. Right in the middle of an otherwise mundane day something astounding happened. You would not believe it if I told you. The whole scene seemed like something out of a book.
Let me set the backdrop. The central character is a good guy. By every respects a good family man. A devout man. Also a responsible man earning his keep to take care of his family. He did not have a power job. In fact his assignment would be looked at as insignificant. On this day he was about to be offered a promotion. A high profile job with high risk and high reward. The job offer would mean catapulting from obscurity into a prominent leadership position.
Upon closer examination the job candidate found the job offer both uncomfortable and undesirable. I am not making this up. it really happened. A guy in a dead end job got the offer of a lifetime. When the job assignment was explained along with the requirements he wanted nothing to do with it.
There is even more backdrop. The headhunters for this job were spiritual. They were people of deep faith and prayer. They prayed for a long time for the right candidate to fill the position. Longer than many wanted to wait. They waited for the CEO to make the final call.
Here is the part where the mundane turned into something extraordinary. Guess who made the job offer? The person assigned to make the job offer was none other than....wait for it. The ANGEL OF THE LORD. I told you would not believe it. He showed up to Moses on the backside of the desert with a message and job offer from his boss for Moses. The job offer was to be the deliverer for the Israelites from Egyptian bondage.
Not comfortable. Not desirable. Why do so many people think the will of God always leads to comfortable assignments in desirable places? Yahweh chooses people for uncomfortable assignments in dangerous and undesirable places. Somebody has to volunteer in the inner city. Somebody has to go love the unlovable. Somebody has to accept the call of God to foster parent. Somebody must take the gospel to foreign countries. Somebody has to minister to special needs people. Somebody has to work in the nursery. Somebody has to do the grunt jobs behind the scenes unnoticed. Somebody has to serve the ungrateful and disgruntled. Someone has pastor in the backwoods. Someone has to turn struggling businesses around. God needed a deliverer. He heard four centuries worth of prayers. He chose a murderer named Moses.
Moses made excuses. Yahweh assured He would be with Moses each step of the way. Moses wanted to back out. God did not budge. Eventually Moses surrendered. He trusted Yahweh and stepped into his destiny. Moses is now considered a hero of the faith. He almost missed all of it because the revealed will of God looked uncomfortable and undesirable.
Consider all that Moses would have missed out on if He had rejected the uncomfortable and undesirable will of God? Moses had a front row seat to see some of the greatest miracles God ever did in history. The 10 plagues. The parting of the Red Sea. The Commandments of God. Manna. Water out of a rock.
It all started with God's invitation to the uncomfortable and undesirable. What is Yahweh inviting you to do for Him? What uncomfortable and undesirable place is He calling you? How will you respond? A great adventure awaits if you have faith and courage to accept God's impossible missions.
Exodus 3:1-14 (NKJV)
1 Now Moses was tending 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.
2 And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.
3 Then Moses said, "I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn."
4 So when the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am."
5 Then He said, "Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground."
6 Moreover He said, "I am the God of your father--the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.
7 And the LORD said: "I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.
8 So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.
9 Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.
10 Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt."
11 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?"
12 So He said, "I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain."
13 Then Moses said to God, "Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they say to me, 'What is His name?' what shall I say to them?"
14 And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And He said, "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.' "
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