Moses had it so easy! Okay, maybe leading a wandering nation of "stiff-necked," rebellious people through the desert for forty years, he didn't have it so easy. Yet recently I wished my ministry was as easy as his appeared to be.
I'm reading through my ESV Journaling Bible (yearly program) and am in the Book of Numbers. Numbers 8:4 is usually one of those verses that you quickly fly over when you're reading through a book like Numbers, but this time it caught my attention and actually got me a little ticked. Here's the verse:
Num. 8:4 And this was the workmanship of the lampstand, hammered work of gold. From its base to its flowers, it was hammered work; according to the pattern that the LORD had shown Moses, so he made the lampstand.
Why would I be upset with a seemingly benign verse like this? Well, Moses made the lampstand like the LORD had shown him. That sounds pretty easy to me. Well, now that I think about it, most things my father showed me, I still couldn’t do, but that’s not my point.
I live my life as the senior pastor of Orangewood and so desperately want God to clearly show me how to make lampstands (or shepherd sheep, or preach sermons, or lead His people), but I don’t receive such explicit directions. How did God show Moses the pattern? How did Moses know that this was God’s way to make lampstands? Most the time I hear about something being “God’s way” of doing things, I’m REALLY suspect that some yahoo didn’t come up with it himself and slap God’s name on it.
Well, things got worse for me and my feelings of Moses’ cushy job! God gave Moses a cloud that hovers over the Tabernacle (the place where God and His people meet) and, get this, when the cloud moved, the people were to move! When the cloud stayed, the people stayed! What kind of leadership skills are needed for that job? “Hey, the cloud’s moving, blow the trumpets, we’re moving out!” I think I could handle that one! Where’s my cloud? Why no cloud over Orangewood? What signals does God give me?
Hopefully, I made my point. Moses was a stud for God! No stud for God has it easy, even if he talked face-to-face with God! I have learned a lot about leadership through Moses. I’ll pass more on to you in the near future, but for now, I’m looking for directions in lampstand making and trying to study meteorology. Has anyone seen our cloud?
