THE GOD-PREPARED HERO

“God is preparing His heroes and, when they appear, the world will wonder where they came from.” - Attributed to A. B. Simpson

The person who wants to “make an impact on the world” is not the one who just charges headlong into the fray. Rather, God must first impact that person before he can make an impact on anything.

Consider Moses. Raised in Pharaoh’s palace, he was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was powerful in speech and action. Despite this privileged life, he apparently sympathized with his fellowmen, the Hebrews, who were being oppressed in Egypt.

The book of Exodus gives the story. After Moses had grown up, he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew.  Checking that there were no witnesses, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. But somehow his murder was discovered anyway. Pharaoh wanted him dead, so Moses fled into the desert and stayed there for forty years. He toiled as a shepherd of his father-in-law’s flocks.

What a let-down it must have been for Moses! Before, he was leading men; now he was leading dumb, bleating sheep. Shepherding was hard work: sleepless nights, constant danger of predators, scrounging for water and grass.

When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, gone was all of his bravado. God called him to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, and Moses stammered excuse after excuse. He even told God to appoint someone else. The Lord’s anger burned against Moses, which I suspect finally persuaded him to sign up for the job.

The rest, as they say, is history. Today, Moses’ name is revered all over the world.

The wilderness is God’s crucible where He purges all our self-sufficiencies and sin-tainted ambition. Those of us who dream of doing great things must first pass through this arduous phase.

Do you feel like you’re in a wilderness right now? Perhaps it is covid-related. Several months of being locked up at home? Lost your job and now desperately finding new income? Worried sick about the health of family members?

I know it's bad. But take heart. God chooses His heroes. He then takes great care in preparing them. There are no short cuts. It may take a long time, perhaps so long that the one being prepared may wonder when – or even if – his training will ever end.

Such are the men and women whom God is pleased to use. But let us submit to Him as sturdy and sharpened arrows so that in the proper time, He brings us out of His quiver, directs us to His targets and unleashes us in power.

Now… back to the tasks that await us today.

Photo from Ganapathy Kumar, Unsplash