Then the Lord said to Moses, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have now allowed you to see it with your own eyes, but you will not enter the land.” So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, just as the Lord had said. [Deuteronomy 34:4-5 (NLT)]
We all know the story of Moses. When his mother can keep him hidden no longer, she puts him in a waterproof basket and lays him in the reeds of the Nile. He’s found by Pharaoh’s daughter who, taking pity on the crying infant, adopts him. Moses’ sister appears and offers to find a wet nurse for the infant. Moses and his birth mother are reunited but, once he’s weaned (around two or three), the boy returns to Pharaoh’s daughter who raises him as her own. Unfortunately, with only eleven verses of Scripture about Moses’ childhood, there’s no way of knowing how much contact he had with his birth family after that or what he knew of his Hebrew heritage. Nevertheless, Moses must have been torn by the knowledge that he was living a privileged life in the palace of the man who was mercilessly oppressing his people. Did he ever feel he belonged in the palace? As a Hebrew boy being raised as an Egyptian prince, I suspect he never was fully accepted by those in Pharaoh’s court. Even though he was raised as a prince, was he too much of a Hebrew to be considered an Egyptian by the people around him?
When he was grown, Moses went out “to visit his own people” but we don’t know why. Was he visiting his birth family, supervising some labor, or merely curious? Scripture only tells us that when Moses saw an Egyptian abusing a Hebrew slave, the outraged man killed the Egyptian and hid the body. The next day, when Moses returned to his people, he happened upon two Hebrews fighting. When he tried to intervene, he was sarcastically rebuffed: “Who appointed you to be our prince and judge? Are you going to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?” Apparently, Moses was too much of an Egyptian to be considered a Hebrew by his own people!
To escape Pharaoh’s wrath over the homicide, Moses fled to Midian. The man who belonged to both the overlords and the slaves became a foreigner in a strange land. Reflecting this sense of not belonging, he even named his son Gershom, meaning “foreigner” or “stranger.”
While the years spent as a prince in Egypt and as a shepherd in Midian were the perfect preparation for the man who would deliver Israel, Moses didn’t know that. It’s easy to understand why he was so reluctant when God told him that he’d be the one to lead the Hebrews to freedom. What did Moses know of his people and God’s covenant with Israel? He hadn’t even circumcised his son!
Part of me finds the story of Moses incredibly sad. He spent a third of his life as an outsider in Pharaoh’s palace, a third as an exile in Midian, and a third as a nomad in the wilderness. A man who always lived as a stranger, he never really had a place to call home. Although Moses was the one who led his people to their home in Canaan, he never stepped into that Promised Land. After viewing it from a distance, he died and was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Moab.
Yet, isn’t this what the Apostle Paul was talking about when he gave his examples of faith in Hebrews 11? He wrote of faithful people like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who, like Moses, only viewed God’s Promised Land from a distance. True faith, however, allows us to see beyond what is right in front of us. We’re all strangers in a strange land because this world is not our home. The Promised Land is not a piece of soil; it is the Kingdom of God and a piece of eternity.
The next day would have been Sally’s wedding anniversary but, because it marked the six-month anniversary of her husband’s death, there would be no celebration. Instead of flowers, dinner, and romance, there would be tears. That morning, Sally called her step-mother, Sue, to share her dread of the following day. When telling us this, Sue admitted to being at a loss for words of consolation. A woman of faith and an ordained pastor, Sue’s difficulty in finding comforting words was because her step-daughter is Jewish. When Sue married Sally’s Jewish father, she respected her new family’s faith just as they respected hers. They knew her beliefs and what she did for a living and Sue gladly answers their questions. Nevertheless, she chooses her words carefully when speaking of the Lord and neither evangelizes nor condemns. Although her words that morning were as reassuring as they could be without speaking of Jesus, Sue knew they were nowhere near as comforting as they could have been.
Today is Labor Day—the unofficial last day of summer. On a day originally intended to celebrate the accomplishments of workers, it’s somewhat ironic that most of us are doing as little work as possible. Nevertheless, whether it’s just making the bed, grilling the burgers, washing the car, or being called in for an emergency surgery, we’ll all do some work today. We appreciate the day off but we’d much prefer a full-blown vacation—with no chores, deadlines, schedules, or business calls, texts, and emails. On the ideal vacation, all we have to do is relax and enjoy ourselves.
Along with sins of the heart like greed, pride, coveting, anger, and envy, we have jealousy. It’s hard to make a clear distinction between jealousy and envy and, in most cases, the words can be used interchangeably. The difference seems to be that the discontent and resentment of envy is focused outward toward something we desire and the person who has it while the discontent and resentment of jealousy is focused inward toward something we have and want to keep for ourselves. For example, Rachel was envious of Leah because she had given birth to Jacob’s children but both sisters were jealous of one another whenever Jacob slept with the other one. Most often used in the context of romantic relationships and often coming from insecurity, jealousy is a mix of overwhelming possessiveness with a little paranoia on the side.
While the Hebrew word translated as covet, chamad, can mean “take pleasure in,” it also means “ungoverned selfish desire.” Chamad ranges from wholesome delight to illicit craving. It’s not a stretch to see how taking pleasure in something that isn’t yours can lead to desiring it and wanting to acquire it. When David saw Bathsheba on the rooftop, he delighted in her beauty but that delight grew into such desire that he took what belonged to his neighbor. When Achan saw the riches that were to be set aside for God, he coveted the wealth for himself and stole it. When Elisha’s servant Gehazi saw the wealth Namaan brought to his master, he was filled with desire for what wasn’t his to take. Coveting the wealth that Elisha refused to accept, Gehazi chased after Namaan, concocted a lie, and took some of that wealth for himself.
“I’m so busy!” If there’s even a remote possibility that we might be asked to do something we’d rather avoid, we can cut off the request at the pass by starting the conversation with those words. It’s the perfect out. On the other hand, when said to us, we can’t argue with it.
Devotions of the Heart 