Last week, I talked about the wonderful truth of how special God has made all of us and about the concept that we’re all living unique lives that no one else will ever be able to duplicate.
The reality of this truth means that you will have an unique perspective: yours. No one else has walked the path that you have walked or will walk. You have discovered many life truths by simply living your life. Things have happened to you that have wounded you and given you special wisdom. You have done many things wrong and many things right. You have succeeded and failed in a variety of things. The unique selection of people in your life has given you a wide variety of ideas, perspective, mistakes, accomplishments and dreams. Simply put: Living your life and walking in your shoes has shaped you into who you are.
So, then, the question becomes: what do you do with the particular perspective that you have? I believe it’s our responsibility to use it as well as we can to help others. It’s also important to recognize that God is constantly shaping us through our life and always for a purpose. We may learn a lesson that won’t pay off for several years, but the key thing is that we learned it when we did AND we used the lessons learned.
For just one example of this, we can look to Moses. Here was a man who grew up in both Hebrew and Egyptian households. As a child, as a condition of his survival in a kingdom that killed Hebrew boys and enslaved the entire race of the Hebrews, he was allowed to grow up into his Hebrew home where he learned who he was and his Hebrew heritage. Later, he was taken from his home and raised into Egyptian culture where he went to the best schools and learned the law of the land. Moses was a freed Hebrew who lived among the Egyptians.
Imagine that for a moment. He was a minority. Worse still, he was a minority in a country that looked down on the Hebrews. However, he was the Pharaoh’s daughter’s adopted child, so he had all the prestige that came with the office. Moses was caught in between two vastly different cultures. As a well-educated Egyptian, he never forgot where he came from. As a Hebrew, it pained him to see his people enslaved. He cared for the Hebrews so much that he beat to death one of the slave drivers who was mistreating a Hebrew slave (see Exodus 2:11-12).
Do you think it was this understanding of both cultures and the deep desire to help the Hebrews that attracted God to Moses? As Moses hemmed and hawed before that famous flaming bush, God knew Moses was the perfect person to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt even though Moses himself didn’t think so. God knew that Moses’ life would give him invaluable insight and guidance in getting the Hebrews out of Egypt, not to mention access to the Pharaoh himself. God also knew that Moses’ legal education would help the Hebrews out with legal issues in the desert (see Exodus 18:15-16). As an educated man, Moses would have learned to write and be able to write down, and thus preserve, the history of his people (he is the widely attributed author of the first five books of the Bible). Moses also had a great support system in the people in his life: his sister, Miriam; his brother, Aaron; and his father-in-law, Jethro. All of this God knew even if Moses didn’t recognize it himself.
So, yes, you could say that Moses had an unique perspective and attributes that only he could have had because he was the only one who had lived his life. This made him the ideal candidate for leading a massive exodus of 600,000+ Hebrews out of Egypt into a wild desert for forty years before settling into what would become the country of Israel.
What about you? What perspectives, insights, skills, lessons, wisdom has your life given you that you can use? Are there people that you can speak up for? Is there a mistake that’s being made by someone and you know better from experience? Is there an organization that could use your insight? Are you on a committee that is headed the wrong way? Is there a need that you know that needs to be met and you can do it?
Are you standing before your own version of the flaming bush and hemming and hawing before God? Don’t ever forget that God made you who you are and set you free into the world. He knows what you’re capable of even if you don’t recognize it in yourself. You have a responsibility for using the unique life – and the unique insight that comes from it – that God gave you. What God calls you to do might not be on as big of a scale as Moses, but even the small things can make a huge difference.
-Matt
ExodusGodinsightMosesperspectiveresponsibilityshapeskilluniquewisdom
The Responsibility of Being You
July 5, 2012
Calvary
Comments Off on The Responsibility of Being You
Matt
Last week, I talked about the wonderful truth of how special God has made all of us and about the concept that we’re all living unique lives that no one else will ever be able to duplicate.
The reality of this truth means that you will have an unique perspective: yours. No one else has walked the path that you have walked or will walk. You have discovered many life truths by simply living your life. Things have happened to you that have wounded you and given you special wisdom. You have done many things wrong and many things right. You have succeeded and failed in a variety of things. The unique selection of people in your life has given you a wide variety of ideas, perspective, mistakes, accomplishments and dreams. Simply put: Living your life and walking in your shoes has shaped you into who you are.
So, then, the question becomes: what do you do with the particular perspective that you have? I believe it’s our responsibility to use it as well as we can to help others. It’s also important to recognize that God is constantly shaping us through our life and always for a purpose. We may learn a lesson that won’t pay off for several years, but the key thing is that we learned it when we did AND we used the lessons learned.
For just one example of this, we can look to Moses. Here was a man who grew up in both Hebrew and Egyptian households. As a child, as a condition of his survival in a kingdom that killed Hebrew boys and enslaved the entire race of the Hebrews, he was allowed to grow up into his Hebrew home where he learned who he was and his Hebrew heritage. Later, he was taken from his home and raised into Egyptian culture where he went to the best schools and learned the law of the land. Moses was a freed Hebrew who lived among the Egyptians.
Imagine that for a moment. He was a minority. Worse still, he was a minority in a country that looked down on the Hebrews. However, he was the Pharaoh’s daughter’s adopted child, so he had all the prestige that came with the office. Moses was caught in between two vastly different cultures. As a well-educated Egyptian, he never forgot where he came from. As a Hebrew, it pained him to see his people enslaved. He cared for the Hebrews so much that he beat to death one of the slave drivers who was mistreating a Hebrew slave (see Exodus 2:11-12).
Do you think it was this understanding of both cultures and the deep desire to help the Hebrews that attracted God to Moses? As Moses hemmed and hawed before that famous flaming bush, God knew Moses was the perfect person to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt even though Moses himself didn’t think so. God knew that Moses’ life would give him invaluable insight and guidance in getting the Hebrews out of Egypt, not to mention access to the Pharaoh himself. God also knew that Moses’ legal education would help the Hebrews out with legal issues in the desert (see Exodus 18:15-16). As an educated man, Moses would have learned to write and be able to write down, and thus preserve, the history of his people (he is the widely attributed author of the first five books of the Bible). Moses also had a great support system in the people in his life: his sister, Miriam; his brother, Aaron; and his father-in-law, Jethro. All of this God knew even if Moses didn’t recognize it himself.
So, yes, you could say that Moses had an unique perspective and attributes that only he could have had because he was the only one who had lived his life. This made him the ideal candidate for leading a massive exodus of 600,000+ Hebrews out of Egypt into a wild desert for forty years before settling into what would become the country of Israel.
What about you? What perspectives, insights, skills, lessons, wisdom has your life given you that you can use? Are there people that you can speak up for? Is there a mistake that’s being made by someone and you know better from experience? Is there an organization that could use your insight? Are you on a committee that is headed the wrong way? Is there a need that you know that needs to be met and you can do it?
Are you standing before your own version of the flaming bush and hemming and hawing before God? Don’t ever forget that God made you who you are and set you free into the world. He knows what you’re capable of even if you don’t recognize it in yourself. You have a responsibility for using the unique life – and the unique insight that comes from it – that God gave you. What God calls you to do might not be on as big of a scale as Moses, but even the small things can make a huge difference.
-Matt
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