Finding purpose in the ashes of Plan B
Imagine God asks you to do a seemingly (to you) impossible task? How would you respond? What kind of assurance would you need?
Often, when we feel God may be leading us to do something difficult or stretching, we want assurance in two areas: "Is it really you, God?" and "Am I the right person for this task?"
This is exactly what happened with Moses. In Exodus 3, God speaks to Moses (from the burning bush) and tells him to return to Egypt to lead Israel out of slavery and into the Promised Land they would inherit and inhabit.
It's a daunting task, and Moses protests with both "Who am I to do this?" (v.11) and "Who are you who's asking me?" (v.13). He needs assurance that it is truly God directing him, and that he can actually do what God is asking him to do.
God reassures him, but then chapter 4 opens with the following passage:
But Moses protested again, “What if they won’t believe me or listen to me? What if they say, ‘The Lord never appeared to you’?”
Then the Lord asked him, “What is that in your hand?”
“A shepherd’s staff,” Moses replied.
“Throw it down on the ground,” the Lord told him. So Moses threw down the staff, and it turned into a snake! Moses jumped back.
Then the Lord told him, “Reach out and grab its tail.” So Moses reached out and grabbed it, and it turned back into a shepherd’s staff in his hand.
“Perform this sign,” the Lord told him. “Then they will believe that the Lord, the God of their ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—really has appeared to you.”
~ Exodus 4:1-5
When Moses asks for more reassurance, God performs a miraculous sign with Moses' shepherd staff. However, a good question is why was Moses even holding a shepherd's staff?
Let's have a quick recap of Moses' early life (you can read it for yourself in Exodus 2):
He was born to Hebrew parents but adopted by the daughter of Pharaoh
He grew up in Pharaoh's palace and was a prince of Egypt
As an adult he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave and killed the Egyptian
When his crime was discovered he fled to the far off land of Midian where he settled, got married, and became a shepherd
After 40 years of this life in Midian, when Moses was 80 years old, God calls to him from the burning bush and tells him to lead Israel out of Egypt
Back to the original question: why was Moses carrying a shepherd's staff? The answer, as you can see from above, was because he had committed a vicious crime and fled to another land to escape punishment.
Moses didn't choose the shepherding life. He was Pharaoh's adopted grandson. He had everything he could possibly want. It's not like God called Moses into shepherding as a vocation. He fell into shepherding because he made a mess of his life and had to start over again.
In Moses' mind, shepherding was Plan B (possibly Plan C, D, or W). The shepherd staff was a daily reminder that he was not living the life he originally had or wanted. And yet, when he asks God for reassurance, God uses this instrument of regret and disappointment to demonstrate his power, presence, and promise to Moses. Not only that, he told Moses to use this staff to demonstrate to the Hebrews and Pharaoh himself that God was with him.
God took the symbol of Moses' Plan B life, the reminder of his mistakes, and used it as the definitive proof that he was with Moses and would empower Moses to do the impossible task before him.
PAUSE and REFLECT: How many of us are living our Plan B life? Perhaps your life has not unfolded the way you originally expected or wanted. Perhaps you look around and see the ashes of mistakes, regrets, and disappointments. Perhaps those ugly remains shake your confidence and trust in yourself or in God.
Yet Plan B's do not stop God from shaping you into the man or woman he dreams you to be. Rather, they are often the very instruments he uses to transform us. Mistakes, regrets, or traumas suffered never prevent God's action in our life, never cancel his call on our life, and never end his presence in our life. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that what qualifies us for the impossible task is not the resumé of our best moments, or the amount of ashes around us, but our willingness to follow Jesus even in the Plan B's, C's, and D's.
So when God calls to you, or unfolds a stretching, uncomfortable path before you, and you ask, "Is it really you, God? Are you sure I'm the person you need, God?" don't be surprised if he chooses to reveal his beauty and his presence through the broken fragments of your life and transform that ugly reminder of a shepherd staff into the very symbol of his loving presence and his powerful confidence in you.
So stop, look up from the ashes, and listen for the voice of God calling you.