I touched on this issue when I preached today at Re:Verb.
I think Moses must have had some issues and questions about his identity. A Hebrew child raised as an Egyptian. I wonder what his friends called him?. ?Funny Nose?!? Come to think of it ? I don?t think Egyptians have much of a case to tease people about their noses! But anyway, here is this Jewish kid, his adopted ?Grandfather? is the Pharaoh. He must have had many questions. ?Where do I come from?? ?Who was my real mother?? ?How could she abandon me? Yet she did save my life?? ?Why did the Hebrew God allow this? Does this God even exist? How can such a God allow his people to be in slavery??
We see Moses? passion for his own people when he kills the Egyptian, and when he gets involved with the 2 arguing Hebrews. Then his adopted grandfather tries to kill him and he has to flee for his life. Again questions may arise. ?Now I?ve lost my second family as well ?? ?How am gong to live in this desert?? Too many to list.
So he finds a wife ? neither Hebrew or Egyptian ? and makes a new life. A very ordinary life. Shepherding. But he?s still confused, and calls his son Gershom, which means ?I have become an alien in a foreign land?. What a statement! And you wonder if he was referring to his new land in the desert, or his upbringing amongst the Egyptians. Then, in his very ordinary circles inside a very ordinary bush, he meets with God. And what does God tell him? Well importantly, He doesn?t start answering questions. And I?m sure Moses wanted to ask some! But God does make himself know to Moses. He says, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” And this meeting goes on to introduce Moses to his life-calling. And this would not have happened, had Moses not allowed this tension to push him outside of his regular life, his family, his comfort place; and pushed him towards somehow finding God.
I think the bottom line is that we embrace the tension we sometimes carry inside us.
Tension that pushes us into wanting to ask questions, but actually, into seeking God.
Even though we are pleading for answers that makes sense, to realize that what our underlying need is, is not a factual answer of reason, but a meeting with God. Some divine meeting where God reveals himself.
