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Exodus 2:11-15 "One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, 'Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?' The man said, 'Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?' Then Moses was afraid and thought, 'What I did must have become known.' When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well."

Think

When I was five years old, I stole a toy bulldozer from a friend's house. It was one of those bright yellow metal Tonka trucks, heavy in my hands, and I wanted it more than I had ever wanted anything. I slipped it under my jacket, walked out the front door, and took it straight home. I hid it under my blue dresser, pushed it all the way to the back where my mom would never find it. Except she did. And she did not yell. She did not give me a long talk about right and wrong. She did something that hurt far worse. She made me walk back to that house, ring the doorbell, hand the bulldozer to my friend's mother, and say the words out loud: "I stole this. I am sorry." That walk felt like it took a hundred years.

I was five, and I was learning something that would take me decades to fully understand. When you grab for something that is not yours to grab, the walk back is always longer than the walk there.

Moses understood that walk. In fact, he lived it for forty years.

Look at what happens in Exodus 2. Moses had grown up in the palace of Pharaoh. He had the finest education in the ancient world. He ate at the king's table. He wore royal clothes. By every measure that mattered in Egypt, Moses was somebody. But he also knew something that made his comfortable life unbearable. The Hebrew slaves being beaten in the mud pits were his people. His blood. His family.

So one day, Moses went out to see them. He watched them at their hard labor, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. And something snapped. He looked left. He looked right. No one was watching. So he killed the Egyptian and buried the body in the sand.

Think about that for a second. His heart was in the right place. The injustice was real. The oppression was brutal. But Moses tried to fix a God-sized problem with a man-sized solution. He lunged. He took justice into his own hands because waiting felt impossible.

The very next day, reality caught up with him. Two Hebrews were fighting, and when Moses stepped in, one of them fired back: "Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?" In one sentence, Moses' secret was public. His authority was rejected. And Pharaoh wanted him dead.

Moses ran. He ran all the way to Midian, to the far edge of the known world, and sat down by a well. That is the last image of Moses in this passage. Not standing on a palace balcony. Not commanding armies. Sitting alone by a well, in a land where nobody knew his name.

I have seen this pattern play out so many times, in my own life and in the lives of people I pastor. Someone sees something broken and decides they are the one to fix it. They send the confrontational email at midnight. They force the hard conversation before the other person is ready. They make the big move before God has opened the door. And then they spend months or years sitting by their own well, wondering how it all fell apart so fast.

Here is what I want you to notice about Moses' story. God did not waste those years in Midian. Moses spent forty years in the palace learning how Egypt thought. Then he spent forty years in the desert learning how to be a shepherd. God needed both versions of Moses. He needed the man who understood power, and he needed the man who had been emptied of it. The prince who grew up with Pharaoh understood leadership. The shepherd who spent four decades tending someone else's flock understood service. And you cannot deliver a nation without both.

The palace made Moses educated. The desert made Moses humble. And humility, not education, is what qualifies a person to be used by God.

If you are in a season right now where you feel like you have gone from somebody to nobody, let me tell you something. You might be right where God wants you. Not because he enjoys watching you struggle, but because he is doing something in you that can only be done when every title, every credential, and every advantage has been stripped away.

That walk back to my friend's house with the stolen bulldozer in my hands was one of the most humbling moments of my childhood. My mom could have handled it a dozen easier ways. But she made me carry the weight of what I had done, all the way to the front door, because she knew something I did not. The walk back is where the lesson lives. Moses walked back too. All the way to the desert. All the way to nobody. And it was the best thing that ever happened to him, because God meets us at our lowest point and says, "Now I can work with you."

Apply

Release the outcome – Identify one area where you are trying to force something God has not initiated. Confess the impulse to control it. Ask him for the patience to let him lead, even if it means sitting by the well a little longer.

Pray

God, I confess that I grab for things that are not mine to grab. I see problems and I want to fix them on my timeline, in my strength. Forgive me for running ahead of you. Teach me that the desert is not punishment. It is preparation. I trust you with the wait. In Jesus' name. Amen.