When Gideon heard a word from G.o.d to him, he wanted to be sure, so he put out a fleece and asked G.o.d to make the ground dry but to keep the fleece wet with dew. When that happened, Gideon still wanted to be extra sure, so he asked G.o.d to do what seemed even more impossible-to make the fleece dry while the ground all around it was wet with dew. The word that had been spoken to Gideon was confirmed by a divine sign, just as the word that was spoken to Saul was confirmed through multiple divine signs.

Merging the Natural with the Divine When G.o.d leads you from where you are to a divine intersection, your gifts, skills, pa.s.sion, experience, and purpose will merge. He will have prepared you for that experience, and He will have prepared that experience for you. First Samuel tells us that "G.o.d changed his heart" (1 Samuel 10:9), and Saul became a new man. When you step into your anointing, you will receive the Spirit"s power to carry out His plan. There will be a certain flow about what you do-it will feel natural to you in many ways. In sports, we refer to this as being in the zone. As a believer, you enter the zone when G.o.d orchestrates your intersection-when all things merge. Saul met his purpose while he was out chasing donkeys. You never know what G.o.d will use to usher you into your destiny.

Friend, if you learn anything at all from Saul, learn this: Don"t go searching for your destiny. Go searching for your donkeys. In other words, fulfill your routine responsibilities and attach those routine responsibilities to G.o.d. When you include G.o.d in your routine, the natural becomes supernatural. You discover your destiny when the natural merges with the divine.

Don"t worry about locating your destiny if you are seeking after G.o.d because your destiny will locate you. You will discover it in the divine intersection that G.o.d has planned for you. Moses"s intersection with Pharaoh"s daughter on the Nile positioned him to eventually set G.o.d"s people free.

When Queen Esther"s husband couldn"t sleep and asked for something to read, he was brought the book of history, and he heard the account of Mordecai saving him. This eventually led to the Israelites" empowerment to defend themselves against their enemies and escape certain death. Mordecai"s experiences, the book of history, the king who was unable to sleep, and Haman"s desire to annihilate the Jews all merged at a divine intersection.

Time after time the Bible gives us ill.u.s.trations of divine intersections. Abigail offered David"s army some food just in time to stop a rampage on her home. Abigail"s foolish husband later died, and she became the king"s wife. Ruth gleaned in Boaz"s field, and she eventually became a matriarch in the line of Jesus Christ.

You never know how G.o.d is going to bring things together at just the right time. Intersections are happening all around you, but you need to open your eyes in order to see them. You probably won"t see if, like Saul, you don"t attach the supernatural to the natural. You need to ask, "Why does G.o.d have me out here searching for these donkeys for so long?" Resist the temptation to complain or give up altogether. In order to see and experience the intersections in your life that G.o.d has for you, view life through the lens of your spirit. Don"t just use your eyes.

By the way, Saul eventually got his donkeys back after all. Even though his search was about much more than locating his donkeys, G.o.d gave him the donkeys as well. So keep searching, keep trying, keep looking, and keep doing that which G.o.d has you doing right now, even if it seems to have no possible connection to your destiny. If this is what G.o.d has given you to do right now, then do it with all of your heart. Keep chasing your donkeys while connecting heaven"s view with earth, and eventually you will come to a divine intersection that involves your future.

PART 3.

The Imperatives of Your Destiny.

11.

Commitment.

I love sports. I played just about every sport our school offered. In the fall I played football, and during the winter I swam on the swim team. In the spring I played baseball. And every weekend, regardless of the season, you could find me playing tackle football without any pads with anyone who showed up.

On the football team, I was the quarterback. On the baseball team, I was the catcher. Many people may not know about one unique strategy catchers employ. They not only give the signals to the pitcher but also try to disrupt the batter. Every good catcher knows how to mess with the batter"s head. You say whatever you can-or don"t say anything at all-to take the batter off his game. Where I come from, we call that "talking noise." It includes anything that distracts the batter from doing what he came to do.

Yogi Berra was one of the most noted catchers of all time. One day, Yogi, who played for the New York Yankees, was taunting an equally legendary player, Hank Aaron, who was playing for the Milwaukee Braves. When Hank came up to bat, Yogi started in, trying to distract him. He said Hank would hit better if he would hold the bat right. "You"re supposed to hit with the label up on the bat," Yogi said. Hank turned and said, "I came up here to hit, not to read."3 Friend, you have to know why you are here. If you don"t, other people can throw you off. If you don"t know your purpose, the circ.u.mstances around you can distract you. In fact, any old jostle may cause you to miss the ball because you will be unfocused and off balance. As a result, you will end up striking out and wasting your opportunity at bat.

Redeem the Time.

The book of Ecclesiastes tells us, "There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). It also says G.o.d "has made everything appropriate in its time" (verse 11).

G.o.d has a clock. Yet G.o.d Himself is not obligated to the clock because He is eternal. G.o.d sits outside of the clock. However, you and I are obligated to the clock because we are still bound by time. That"s why Paul tells us in his letter to the church at Ephesus, "Be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is" (Ephesians 5:15-16).

The King James and New King James versions say we are to be "redeeming the time." Make the most of it, don"t waste it, and definitely don"t squander it by not understanding G.o.d"s purpose for your time.

Time has been given to you for one reason-so you can fulfill your destiny. If you are still alive and you still have time, that time has been given to you in order to achieve the destiny G.o.d has ordained for you.

Time is consistent with destiny and purpose.

When you have to get up and go to work in the morning, you will set your clock to six a.m. or whatever time you choose that will get you to your destination on schedule. This is because time is tied to purpose. If you don"t live on purpose, you will not use your time wisely. You will get up anytime you feel like it, go to bed anytime, and let the days slip by without redeeming the time. And before you know it, you are 50, 60, or 70 years old, and you wonder, "Where did all the time go?"

Your time and the way you use it are intimately linked with your purpose and destiny. Knowing and living out your purpose gives you G.o.d"s perspective on the use of your time.

Now, you might be thinking, "Tony, I got saved when I was twenty, but I didn"t get serious about my purpose until now-some thirty years later. What now? I have already wasted too much time."

If that is you, then I want you to focus right now on G.o.d"s grace because Scripture tells us that G.o.d can give you back the time you have lost. He says, "I will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten" (Joel 2:25). G.o.d will not go back in time and make you 20 years old again, but He has a way of pouring a lot of purpose into the years you have left.

In addition, I want to encourage you to do your part. Maybe you just strolled through the first decades of your adult life, and now you realize that time is running short. If that is you, then picture yourself in a sprint to the finish line. Don"t keep strolling. Don"t view this as a marathon. Sprint to the end. Maximize your time now. Do as much now to fulfill your destiny as you possibly can-and then some. Make the most of your remaining time.

A Living Sacrifice As we have seen earlier, your destiny is the customized life calling G.o.d has ordained and equipped you to accomplish in order to bring Him the greatest glory and achieve the maximum expansion of His kingdom. Your destiny explains why you are here. What a tragedy it would be to die without knowing why G.o.d saved you in the first place, to have only meandered from place to place, thing to thing, or person to person without fulfilling your destiny.

Your commitment to G.o.d is the starting point for discovering and living out your destiny.

I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of G.o.d, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to G.o.d, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of G.o.d is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:1-2).

As we see in this pa.s.sage, when you are positioned rightly underneath G.o.d, you won"t have to find your destiny because your destiny will find you. The leading of the Holy Spirit, the will of G.o.d, and your destiny are all directly connected. But in order to be positioned rightly and to be led by the Spirit into the will of G.o.d, you must first allow G.o.d to own all of you. You are to present your body a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to G.o.d.

The phrase "living and holy sacrifice" conveys an interesting concept. It is somewhat contradictory because Old Testament sacrifices were killed. If a lamb was sacrificed, it was put on the altar and slain. Therefore, it was dead. Essentially, then, in order to present yourself as a living sacrifice, you are offering to G.o.d something that is both alive and dead-all at the same time.

If Paul were here with us today, he would probably quote himself: "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). Paul was alive-he was writing or dictating those words-but he was also crucified, or dead.

Imagine asking Paul, "Hey Paul, what are your dreams? What are your goals?" He might reply, "I don"t have any dreams or goals because dead folks don"t dream. Dead folks don"t have goals."

But suppose you switched the questions a bit and asked, "Paul, what is G.o.d"s dream for you? What are His goals for your life?" Then Paul would be able to talk in depth because he defined his life not in terms of his own will but in terms of his ident.i.ty with Jesus Christ. As he wrote, "You have been bought with a price: therefore glorify G.o.d in your body" (1 Corinthians 6:20).

Paul"s career was not the sum total of his destiny, as a matter of fact. Paul made G.o.d"s goals his own goals, so he was able to carry out the seemingly mundane career of making tents in order to earn the money he needed to carry out his destiny-to make G.o.d known. When you know your life belongs to Christ, you can be content in any career or occupation G.o.d has you in as long as you know it is enabling you to live out your destiny and benefit others.

G.o.d is not primarily interested in blessing your destiny for your own sake. He is primarily interested in blessing your destiny for His sake. The best way to live with that mindset is to offer yourself to Him as a living sacrifice, to climb up on the altar and stay there. The problem is, most of us will respond to a good sermon, song, or quiet time with G.o.d and climb right up onto the altar, saying, "Not my will, but yours." But then we are just as quick to climb back down off the altar the next day. That"s the trouble with living sacrifices.

One day a chicken and a pig walked past a grocery store. A sign in the store window read, Needed: Bacon and Eggs. The chicken looked at the pig, and the pig looked at the chicken. The chicken said, "I"ll give him the eggs if you give him the bacon."

"You have to be crazy," said the pig. "Have you lost your mind?"

"What"s the problem?" asked the chicken.

The pig replied, "The problem is that for you it is a contribution. But for me, it"s my life!"

A lot of people today want to give G.o.d a contribution. They will give an egg here or there-or maybe even a dozen from time to time. But they don"t want to climb up on the altar and die to their own wants, desires, dreams, and will so they can be maximized for G.o.d"s purpose as living sacrifices. But G.o.d doesn"t want your eggs. He wants your pork chops, ham hocks, and pig"s feet. He wants the whole deal.

Motivated by Mercy Before Paul a.s.serted in Romans 12 that we are to be living sacrifices, he wrote in Romans 111 about the mercies of G.o.d. What is the difference between grace and mercy? In G.o.d"s grace, He gives us what we don"t deserve. In G.o.d"s mercy, He doesn"t give us what we do deserve-He withholds the punishment that is due us.

In Romans 13, Paul explains that all those who have rejected G.o.d are condemned. He offers three groups as examples. Heathens are condemned because they rejected G.o.d even though He revealed Himself in nature and in their consciences. Jews are condemned because they rejected G.o.d in spite of the oracles predicting Christ. Moralists are condemned because they condemn others for that which they practice themselves. Paul summarizes by saying that no one falls outside of the legitimate condemnation of G.o.d. "As it is written, "There is none righteous, not even one"" (Romans 3:10).

Paul follows up his writing on mankind"s guilt before G.o.d by telling us that G.o.d has come up with a way for unrighteous people to be made righteous. In this process, called justification, G.o.d credits the righteousness of Christ to the account of the unrighteous. Chapter 4 tells how we are to receive this righteousness by faith, and chapter 5 shows that once you are endowed by grace, it ought to affect all of your life.

However, chapters 6 and 7 explain that even though grace ought to affect all of your life, it doesn"t always do so. The effectiveness of grace in your life depends on whom you obey-yourself or G.o.d. Chapter 8 shows how a believer can have victory to obey G.o.d through the Holy Spirit, whose job is to empower those whom G.o.d has saved so they can live out their salvation. But then chapters 911 go on to explain that people do not receive that power if they do not believe it.

Through all of this, Paul has made a clear argument that we can receive G.o.d"s great mercies if we will believe. Then he says, "Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of G.o.d..." Paul is asking us to recognize our own unrighteousness, our own inability to live holy lives, our own incapacity to save ourselves... and then to present ourselves to G.o.d as living and holy sacrifices in response to His mercy on us.

All of You and All of G.o.d Friend, your destiny includes your total commitment to G.o.d. Church attendance without total commitment becomes sacrilege rather than worship. As you embark on the journey of destiny, this is one of the deepest questions you need to ask yourself: Does all of me belong to all of Him? Or do you have a spiritual attic in your life-a place where you put stuff you don"t want G.o.d to touch? Commitment requires that all of you belongs to all of G.o.d.

In order for all of you to belong to all of G.o.d, the world must own none of you. We have seen that Paul emphasized this point: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Being conformed to something is similar to what happens when a potter molds a lump of clay. The potter squeezes, shapes, and forms the clay until it conforms to what the potter had intended.

Paul is telling us that we are not to allow the world"s way of thinking or the world"s way of operating to conform us to the world"s standards. The world system is headed by Satan and leaves G.o.d out. Many people have not discovered their destiny because they are letting the world define success for them. When that happens, you may have wealth and all that money can buy, but you won"t have your destiny and the joy, peace, and contentment that accompany it.

If you are to reach your destiny, you cannot let the world own you. You must belong to G.o.d. When you belong to G.o.d, you will be "transformed by the renewing of your mind." The Greek word translated transformed is in the pa.s.sive tense. This means that the transformation is not something you do for yourself; G.o.d does it for you. If I were to tell you that I drove to the store, I would be using an active construction to describe something I did. However, if I told you that I was driven to the store, I would be using a pa.s.sive construction to explain that someone else did something to me or for me.

A Clear Mind In other words, when you commit your life to G.o.d and give Him all of you, not allowing the world to have anything of you, you have positioned yourself so the Holy Spirit can go to work in your mind. He will do the work if you will position yourself rightly underneath G.o.d as a living and holy sacrifice. Rather than being double-minded, as James says, or rather than living in spiritual schizophrenia, you will have a clear mind because of the Spirit"s work within you. As the Spirit begins to work in your mind, transforming it, He will reveal the will of G.o.d to you. "For as he thinks within himself, so he is" (Proverbs 23:7). The way to have your thoughts align with G.o.d"s thoughts is to commit yourself to Him. You align yourself underneath His will, presenting yourself as a living sacrifice to Him and rejecting worldly thoughts.

When the Holy Spirit transforms your mind, He replaces your old, worldly way of thinking with His thoughts. You are then thinking the thoughts of the Trinity-G.o.d the Father, Jesus Christ His Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, you can then boldly practice John 15:7-8: "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples." You can now get on your knees and pray for whatever you are thinking because your mind is conformed to Christ. You are wanting and desiring what He wants.

Get in Position Fulfilling your destiny is all about aligning yourself under G.o.d, positioning yourself rightly under His leadership. A great quarterback can hit a receiver even when defensive backs are rushing as long as his receiver is in the right position. In fact, football coaches don"t merely look for speed when recruiting receivers. Football coaches look for the way receivers position themselves. Michael Irvin of the Dallas Cowboys was not the fastest receiver on the field, but he could get positioned correctly, creating a target that his quarterback could hit. G.o.d can hit you with your destiny if you are in position.

If you are an experienced sailor, you understand that trying to get the wind to change directions is not the best idea. You might be out there a long time if that is your strategy. Rather, you have to adjust your sail to the direction of the wind in order to make any headway. G.o.d wants to give you your destiny, but you must adjust your sails according to the direction He is blowing in order to get you where He wants you to go.

A Perfect Destiny There is no greater destiny for you than the destiny G.o.d has for you. It is the best plan for you. Live it. G.o.d"s destiny for you is "good and acceptable and perfect." You don"t need to be afraid that if you commit all of you to all of G.o.d, He will give you a destiny that you hate. G.o.d will use your personality, talents, backgrounds, skills, interests, pa.s.sion, and even your scars to bring you to a destiny that is "good and acceptable and perfect." Not too many people wind up hating a perfect destiny.

According to my thoughts and according to my plans, I was never supposed to be in Dallas, where I"ve been pastoring now for more than 36 years. I had made plans straight out of college to go Grace Theological Seminary in Indiana. I had applied, been accepted, paid my fees, found housing, and prepared to move when G.o.d showed up through a conversation with a man who said, "Tony, have you ever thought of going to Dallas Theological Seminary? I"ll pay your application fee if you will commit to pray about it and apply."

Which I did. And that placed me in an urban context while studying for both my master"s degree and my doctorate. Grace Theological would not have provided an urban context of ministry at all. Going to Dallas opened the door to an entire urban-focused outreach ministry that now takes place both locally and nationally in an effort to connect churches with schools to impact struggling communities through the National Church Adopt-a-School Initiative.

From a human standpoint, most people would say I changed my mind. Yet according to Romans 12:1-2, the Holy Spirit transformed my thinking. He caused me to think differently because He had a plan for me.

A little girl came to her father one day and said, "Daddy, you promised to give me a nickel." Her father had promised her. So he reached in his pocket, but he couldn"t find a nickel. Instead, all he had were dollar bills. In fact, the smallest bill he had was a $20.

He said, "You"ve been a really good girl lately, so here is a twenty-dollar bill instead."

The little girl started to cry. "But Daddy," she said, "you promised me a nickel."

"But sweetie," he replied, "this is a whole bunch of nickels."

Yet because she could not understand, tears streamed down her face.

This is what a lot of us do with our destiny. We tell G.o.d what we want to do with our lives. We tell Him what we desire. But G.o.d says that if you will simply commit all of you to all of Him, He has so much more to give you than just what you want. G.o.d wants you to take the risk of trusting Him. He wants to hear you say, "Not my will, but Your will be done." Even if G.o.d"s purpose includes a cross on Friday, remember-there will be a resurrection on Sunday. Trust Him. He has a good, acceptable, and perfect destiny just for you.

12.

Development The book of Exodus contains one of the greatest biblical stories related to destiny. Most of us are familiar with Moses. We know how he floated in a basket along the Nile until Pharaoh"s daughter found him. We know about the ten plagues and the parting of the Red Sea. We know that he led the Israelites out of bondage and into freedom.

However, we can easily miss the significance of what happened during a period of Moses"s life that the Bible has very little to say about. Not much is written concerning the time between Moses"s fortieth year (when he fled from Egypt) until his eightieth year (when he met G.o.d at the burning bush). Even though there isn"t much written about those four decades, they are critical. During those years, Moses developed the way he needed to in order to fulfill his destiny.

A Valley of Development The road to your destiny pa.s.ses through a valley of development. This is where G.o.d prepares you for your destiny and prepares everything and everyone else related to your destiny for you.

Most of us don"t like to think about going through a time of development. It doesn"t usually make for the greatest stories in the Bible either. When we consider Moses, we recall things like the Red Sea or the burning bush. But Moses"s destiny didn"t begin there. It began much earlier than either of those situations. It started in a time of preparation. It began during many long and drawn-out days when Moses took care of things that did not seem all too spectacular. He shepherded sheep each day and ate his meal by a fire each night. His preparation began in trials, challenges, and boredom.

And just as G.o.d had a plan for Moses, He also has a plan to prepare you and lead you to your destiny. A developmental process must occur so that when you arrive at your bush, you are ready for your calling, and just as importantly, your calling and all that it entails are ready for you.

Before Moses saw a bush on fire, and before he led the Israelites out of slavery, G.o.d allowed and arranged a series of events that helped him develop. In the New Testament, Stephen summarizes Moses"s life in Acts 7-the last sermon he preaches before he is martyred. Stephen spends a significant amount of time recounting the history of the Jewish nation, which obviously included a portion on Moses. For the sake of our discussion on undergoing development to fulfill your destiny, we need to look at Moses"s entire story, or what might be called the backstory. In it we discover how G.o.d prepared him for his destiny.

It was at this time that Moses was born; and he was lovely in the sight of G.o.d, and he was nurtured three months in his father"s home. And after he had been set outside, Pharaoh"s daughter took him away and nurtured him as her own son. Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians, and he was a man of power in words and deeds. But when he was approaching the age of forty, it entered his mind to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel. And when he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian. And he supposed that his brethren understood that G.o.d was granting them deliverance through him, but they did not understand. On the following day he appeared to them as they were fighting together, and he tried to reconcile them in peace, saying "Men, you are brethren, why do you injure one another?" But the one who was injuring his neighbor pushed him away, saying, "Who made you a ruler and judge over us? You do not mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you?" At this remark, Moses fled and became an alien in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons (Acts 7:20-29).

This overview of Moses"s life provides us with a few key points. Moses was raised in Pharaoh"s household, so he would have experienced the finer, more luxurious things of life. He would also have received the best education Egypt had to offer. At that time, Egypt was the most advanced nation in the world-they had built the pyramids and had developed systems of writing. The best education in Egypt would have been the best education in the world. For his day and for his culture, Moses was brilliant. We are also told that Moses was mighty in the way he spoke and in the things he did. He was an attractive, intelligent, privileged, powerful, and skilled man-the cream of the crop. Everyone knew Moses. More than likely, everyone wanted to be him too.

In addition to being exposed to everything Egypt had to offer, Moses was exposed to Hebrew culture and values through his biological mother. As we have seen, when Moses was taken from the river and raised in Pharaoh"s home, his sister Miriam asked Pharaoh"s daughter if she would like a nursemaid to help care for him. That nursemaid turned out to be Moses"s own mother, who was then able to raise her son in the protection of the Egyptian palace.

So Moses benefited from the best of Egypt and received instruction and wisdom from his Hebrew mother along the way. At 40, Moses was at the top of his game in every way. He had position and power, and he had a sense of his destiny. He knew the plight of his brothers, the Hebrews, and he decided to set them free, apparently one person at a time.

Backfire We read in Hebrews that Moses made a decision to identify with the Jews rather than the Egyptians (Hebrews 11:24-26), which led to his belief that he would deliver Israel all by himself. Moses had a vague understanding of his purpose-he just wasn"t ready to fulfill it. He had not developed into the person G.o.d could use.

Moses"s plan had a few flaws. First, G.o.d hadn"t specifically instructed him to deliver Israel, so G.o.d didn"t provide the power Moses would have needed to pull off the job. Second, the Israelites didn"t know what Moses was trying to do, so they couldn"t grasp why he killed the Egyptian. The pa.s.sage says, "They did not understand" (Acts 7:25).

Friend, G.o.d will reveal your destiny when He is ready for you to receive it. The pa.s.sion might be in you, the skills might be in you, and the burden, desire, and dream might all be in you. But until G.o.d says go, you are not ready to fulfill it. When Moses killed the Egyptian, he acted on his burden, pa.s.sion, and skills. He even appeared to be at an intersection of sorts. But he acted in his flesh rather than waiting on G.o.d to reveal his steps. As a result, Moses"s move backfired in epic proportions.

Moses a.s.sumed that he had the right time, he had the right method, and he was the right man. Yet only one of his a.s.sumptions was right. He was the right man, but his timing, methodology, and everything else were all wrong. G.o.d hadn"t yet developed Moses to the point where he could lead an entire nation to its freedom. And because Moses jumped out ahead of his destiny, he ended up making a very wrong move. As a result, he fled to the wilderness, winding up at Midian, where he met Jethro, married his daughter, and herded sheep.

For 40 years.

Moses went from the White House to the outhouse and worked long hours for low pay in the hot sun taking care of sheep.

Humility At the height of Moses"s development, he learned a lesson of humility. Most of us need to learn this lesson sometime. It is a lesson of inadequacy. G.o.d will often use valleys and hardships to strip us of self-sufficiency because self-sufficiency negates dependence on Him.

Moses had his burden. He knew his pa.s.sion. He had skills, money, looks, power, position, intelligence, and strength. He just didn"t know what each of us needs to know most-that there is only one G.o.d, and we are not Him. Moses thought more of himself than he should have.

So G.o.d took Moses to the wilderness to learn what he never could in Egypt. He took him to a place of nothing. He took him to a dead-end career. He took Moses to a foreign land where he had to unlearn one culture and learn another. He had to pick up a new language and a new lifestyle. He learned how to lead sheep-a skill that would come in handy when he eventually led people through the wilderness. G.o.d took away the things Moses could fall back on. His Egyptian education had no real value out there in the wilderness. Moses needed to learn how to survive in the wilderness. How to find water. How to protect sheep. How to make his own sandals and his own staff.

Essentially, Moses had to unlearn much of what he had learned in order to learn what he needed to know most-that he didn"t know nearly as much as he thought he did in the first place.

The Time Has Come We discover that Moses learned this lesson by the time he responded to G.o.d at the burning bush. G.o.d revealed Himself to Moses and called out to him, stating his name two times and then instructing Moses about his destiny.

I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians (Exodus 3:7-8).

The Israelites had been crying and complaining 40 years earlier, but now they cried out to G.o.d. Moses hadn"t been ready to be their deliverer, and they hadn"t been ready to be delivered. It wasn"t time yet. However, 40 years later, the right time had come.

"Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt." But Moses said to G.o.d, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?" (verses 10-11).

Notice that this is the same purpose Moses attempted to fulfill 40 years earlier-leading the Israelites out of bondage. G.o.d didn"t change the purpose; He just changed the timing. You may feel as if G.o.d has always wanted you to do something, yet your life seems to be headed in another direction. Unless G.o.d changes your desire and burden to fulfill your purpose, keep holding on to it. It may simply be a matter of time. You may be in a period of development as G.o.d prepares you to carry out your purpose.

A Broken Spirit Moses"s response to G.o.d"s call on his life the second time around reveals that he learned his lesson. He learned that G.o.d was the only One who could do what He said He would do. Moses didn"t respond, "You"re right, G.o.d, I"m the one. I"m the man. I"m going to go set my people free." Rather, he responded, "Who am I?" He later added, "Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue" (Exodus 4:10).

Moses didn"t simply reply, "Um...who, me?" Rather, he said in effect, "You"ve got the wrong guy, G.o.d. Please-I"m not the one. I can"t do this. In fact, I never could have done something like this."