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According to rabbinic tradition and Acts 7, Moses tended sheep in the wilderness for forty years.  His first forty years were spent in a king’s palace.  His final forty years were spent leading a liberated, yet still grumpy people toward the Promised Land.  It’s the middle forty, the desert years, that seem pointless.  He got married, had some kids, and inhaled the smoke of a burning paote bush that led him to believe I AM WHO I AM was telling him to lead his people out of Egypt.  Forty years is a long time to listen to  sheep.  It is a long time to believe the words of a flaming bush.

What’s more is that God tells him the job he is preparing him to do will fail.  Exodus 4 paraphrased says, “You’re going to do all these miraculous things, but I’m going to harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he won’t listen to you.  It’s not going to work.  It’s not you; it’s me.”  Encouragement like that probably made the octogenarian long to hear the bleating of sheep.  Of course God’s point is that He is the deliverer, not Moses.  Still, if you’re Moses, you’re probably hoping God throws you a bone.  I mean most leaders would give up after the second or third plague failed to deliver the promised results.

Moses waits out ten plagues with incredible faith.  The fortitude to stand around waiting comes from – well, standing around waiting.  Listening to your father-in-laws sheep.  Alone.  In the desert.

I have this sense that there are many of us at this juncture in history; American Christians in the desert.  We’re on a metaphorical forty year shepherding assignment.  We’re doing our pithy little jobs, getting married, having babies, listening to sheep, and staring at the sun.  Me, I’m wondering why it’s so damn hot and lonely and, in a word, boring.  I am a caged rat.  I wonder if you are too?  The words of the burning bush are crowded out.  All around are the accusing voices: “Remember when you killed that guy back in Egypt?  You deserve the desert!”  The prophets say one thing, the theologians another, gossipers combine the two…  They might contain bits of truth: you do have a short fuse.  You do need to mature in this area or in that.

No one’s here but someone else’s inconsequential sheep.  No one is watching you learn and grow.  Might as well give it a shot right now, in the desert.  Use the external voices to shape you.  Then forget the accusations by heeding the burning bush.

If you’re with me: in the desert, grappling with the inability to do what you’ve always thought you were supposed to do, filled with the voices of accusation or damnation, wrestling with a major life change from shepherd to something else altogether; look for the bush.  Listen to the bush.  Be patient.  Be faithful.

J. Robert Clinton, in his book The Making of a Leader (click the picture link to purchase this great book!) says,

“All leaders go through conflict, crises and some isolation processing.  You will too.  But not all recognize its immense value… It is difficult to go through maturity processing even if you understand its positive long-term values; it is worse to go through it without this perspective.  I hope you will desire to see the sovereign hand of God in it.”

God is sovereign.  You and me, we’re still growing.  It’s a lonely desert and the burning bushes don’t speak all that often, generally only once.  Remember every word.