Mind the Gap: Morning Devotion
Exodus 2:11-3:2
Daily devotions and Vacation Bible Schools often make a lot out of the burning bush scene—rightly so, I suppose. But the setup is always as valuable as the punch line, even in Exodus 3. Moses is out in the wilderness, tending someone else’s flocks, wandering near the mountain of God, because he’s in his gap year. Or, depending on how you’re reading Exodus, his gap forty years.
In fact, Moses is a fugitive. Though raised in the Egyptian royal household, he ventures as an adult into the Hebrew slave ghetto. There his brief mission for justice goes horribly wrong. What’s worse, his fellow Hebrews reject his identity as one of them. He does not belong. So he becomes a castaway, self-exiled to Midian. He is now completely a foreigner in a strange land.
These three things: Mission—what are we supposed to do about the darkness in the world? Identity—who are we? Belonging—with whom do we share our table, our bed, our dreams? These are the core values of every human being. And like the experience of Moses, often they are discovered most starkly when life goes sideways: when our mission flounders, we are rejected by our own, or when we become strangers in a new place.
Yet, this is precisely when God chooses to speak. When the moorings are cut, the wind begins to blow. When home is crumbling behind us, Christ, the great Home-Maker, invites us in.
One Word (or pass):
A time when your life took a sharp left turn, and you discovered life was not the way you thought it would be.
Would you pray with me?
God of the Unconsumed: Use our mistakes to sharpen our mission; use challenge to forge our identity; use others to help us belong. And make us the light of Christ to all we will serve here today. Amen!