Moving from Plan A to Plan A+ (Part 6)
I don’t know if you have ever ruined something, and discovered that “great was the fall…”
The temptation is to believe that nothing can be done, and that the egregious loss will be the center of your life from that day forward. If the loss is severe, the temptation to think that way, and worse, the temptation to organize your life around the loss instead of even a hope of a decent future is profound.
Most people in significant loss believe that they have moved from Plan A to Plan D minus…
But not if God is in it.
This theme is everywhere in the Bible… Go back to the start of the good book; put yourself in the shoes of one who walked in the land of “what-might-have-been…”
Imagine being first in line to be king, after you have already been raised from rags to riches. You were born a slave, born to powerless parents in appalling conditions. You were born when little slave boys were being slaughtered—and the childless (and only) daughter of the king of the land adopted you when she saw you helpless in a basket, floating in a river. That king had no son—so you were first in line for the throne.
You went from certain death (certainly guaranteed slave labor) to profound nobility. You received an education, military training, a luxurious home, excellent nutrition, mentoring from the king of the land in the corridors of power, and wealth beyond the dreams of avarice…
You learned to be a king, from the king of the mightiest power on earth!
And then you killed a man in a fit of rage, when you saw him attack another slave—like the slave that you were born to be...
It was murder, and you had to flee for your life.
You wind up in a foreign land, unknown, without friends, without relatives, and likely exhausted, (though no longer afraid that you will be thrown into prison for murder).
Doubtless you remember that you were supposed to become the king—KING! You trained for that for 40 years… Now blood is on your hands… You will never be the king you thought you would become…
Everything, everything, EVERYTHING IS LOST!!!
AND YOU DID IT!!
At a well, you see some maidens being bullied by brigands—and you knew how to fight—and so you used that military training, and “cleaned their clocks…” Grateful, those girls introduce you to their dad, and he extends hospitality as a thank you for defending his children. So, with everything lost, you wind up "found" in the company of shepherds who sleep on the dirt floor and lived in tents. One of the girls you defended, well, in time you marry her, and spend your days in obscurity.
You remember that You could have been king! Now you pass your time with stinky sheep, sleeping in tents in the desert…
The girl’s dad, well he was two things, 1) a shepherd, and 2) a high priest for a nation descended from the line of Abraham—that priest, well he was a priest of Midian—a nation descended from the children of Abraham’s third wife (after Sarah died).
So, though you never intended to wind up in a foreign land, you learn about the God of your slave stock parents. And you learn from her dad, not just about that God, but about how to be a high priest of that God, and how to lead a nation of desert wanderers in worship…
Then God “spoke” through a bush that burned—though it was not consumed.
Your name is Moses… and that God said he knew your father!
The God of Abraham called Moses to do something that melded both parts of his life into a magnificent calling.
Moses the man who would be king but lost everything, well…
Nothing was wasted. Nothing. He went from Plan A to Plan A+… So can you, even if you have ruined something lovely…
I suspect you haven’t committed murder, after being raised as the king of the land.
But even if you have, our God is able to redeem…
God will take you from Plan A to A+.
© David Chotka 2020
