Doing Simple Things With God
Imagine being the number one fugitive on the “wanted dead or alive” list of a country as strong as the Unites States of America. All the major ports (land, sea, and air) have your picture and biodata on their computer systems. You’ve opted for an obscure life in a remote desert in the middle east. You have come to terms with the fact that you will spend the rest of your life as a different person, with your past well hidden and disguised, and your aspiration in life gone forever. After 40 years of self-banishment, all of a sudden a voice from flames of fire within a bush speaks to you and radically changes everything. That was the story of Moses.
God announced himself to Moses: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6, NIV). He told him to go back to Egypt where he was a fugitive, and then make a demand on the king to release the Israelites, whose population at the time was about the size of Birmingham (1.3 million). God expected him to believe that the king will agree to his request, albeit with strong persuasion, and that the people themselves, who didn’t know him will agree to follow him to an unknown and undisclosed location.
They didn’t have enough horses or donkeys to ride and there was the small matter of the Red Sea they had to cross to get to the promise land. Now, how daunting is that! No, how impossible!
God often calls us to do simple things in life, like being a father or mother, being a friend or sister, belonging to a small support group or being a good neighbour. As simple as those things sound, we all know from experience that they’ve sometimes turned out rather difficult when relationships get fractured. Being a friend or a parent can sometimes be exhausting, yet can’t compare with those times when God calls us to do the impossible - Like he did Moses.
Moses eventually led the people through the wilderness for forty years, their number grew to three million and they fought and won many battles. He brought a weak, feeble, defeated and enslaved people out of a nation and made them a nation. And they are still standing as a nation today - Israel. A man who thought his life will end in obscurity became a hero of faith, inspiring generations after him. That's what God can do with your life and mine. That’s your God, that’s my God. He is the same yesterday, as He is today and forever will be (Hebrews 13:8).
It is highly unlikely, in fact most definitely improbable that God will ask any of us to do anything on the scale of what He asked Moses to do. However, some of the things He will ask of us may well feel (to us) as daunting. The important thing to know is that like He was with Moses, so He promised to be with us.
When Joshua took over from Moses as the leader of God’s people, strong as he was, he had impossible shoes to fill. But God said to him, “…As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Joshua 1:5, NIV). All through redemptive history, we’ve read, seen and experienced God’s faithfulness. No task is too difficult for God. He has never commissioned something He is not able to complete. It was His idea for Jesus to be born as a man, to die and be raised from the dead. The grave could not stop Him, neither can anyone stop us as we embark on a mission with God this year.
So, what are the simple things God is calling us to do this year? To be a good neighbour, to be a God-fearing person, to learn to love one another. To serve God with the gifts He has given us. To be a witness for Him. Like He was with Moses and Joshua, He promised He will be with us too: “…and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Matthew 28:20, KJV)
I wondered if I should title this piece “Things Become Simple With God” because we have a notorious reputation for making simple things complicated. We complicate our simple lives, when we choose to do things our own way: “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.” (Proverbs 14:12, NIV). This year, can I ask you to bring not only the complicated bits of your life to God, but also the seemingly simple bits too. God makes difficult things easy. He simplifies our lives and makes simple things even simpler. It is by His grace that we all stand. He did not promise us an easy journey, but He promised to be with us even in the toughest times of our lives. When we give Him our lives, He turns our ordinary journey through life into an extra-ordinary adventure with Him. Together With God, we win!