The Wasted Years?

Photo by nima hatami on Unsplash

As Moses watched over his father-in-law’s sheep, he must have wondered what it had all been for. His miraculous rescue from a death decree as an infant; his upbringing and education as a prince of Egypt. Surely God had intended something more for him than the life of a shepherd in the Midianite wilderness — estranged both from the Hebrews who’d birthed him and the Egyptians who’d raised him.

Maybe, as he once believed, God had spared him so that one day he could help his people. But in one arrogant, impulsive moment, he’d ruined it all when his anger drove him to kill the Egyptian he’d seen beating a fellow Hebrew. But the impulsiveness and arrogance had long since disappeared, along with any confidence he once had that he’d been destined for some great purpose. Now, as he and the flock approached Mt. Sinai, he shook off the questions and regrets as he shaded his eyes against the afternoon sun and searched for a place to make his camp.

But instead of a camping place, he found a bush burning from within without being consumed. Amazed and wanting to understand how such a thing could be, Moses crept closer only to hear a voice call him by name from the midst of the bush. The voice identified Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and warned Moses to take off his sandals because he was standing on holy ground. Moses knew then that he was hearing the Lord and in awestruck fear, he covered his face.

After all Moses’ years of exile, the years of doubt, discouragement, and regret, God showed up with a mission: Moses would lead God’s people out of their slavery in Egypt into the promised land of milk and honey. The mission Moses once may have thought himself called to but no longer believed himself fit to perform. He was 80 years old, after all, and not glib of tongue. He’d spent the last 40 years or so herding sheep in the wilderness. He certainly had no standing in Pharaoh’s court. For all Moses knew, he might still have a bounty on his head.

So despite his wondering — and you know Moses must have wondered — what it had all been for, when God finally called him to the job He’d always planned for him to do, Moses argued with the Lord over his fitness. Forty years after his ignominious fall from prince to shepherd, Moses thought so little of himself and his abilities that arguing with the God of all creation was less threatening than the idea of confronting Pharaoh and guiding the Israelites into freedom.

As we age, we may look back on our lives with questions and regrets as Moses surely did and wonder exactly how we got to where we are today. Did God really have a plan or purpose for our lives? Did a decision or decisions we made send us down a different path than the one we thought He’d laid out for us? Maybe health issues are now taking a toll. Or regrets over a past that seems to hold too many wasted years. Do we believe, like Moses, that even if God still has some mission for us, we’re no longer fit for the job?

Moses may have thought his years as a shepherd were wasted. Maybe you sometimes feel that way about your own past. Age and too many aimless years following your own path have worn away your confidence and any abilities you once had. Yet, in Moses case, far more than his years in Pharaoh’s court, his forty years or so in the wilderness shepherding foolish, willful, wandering sheep were what prepared him for the work God had set before him — forty years in the wilderness shepherding the foolish, willful, wandering children of Israel.

As it was with Moses, it may be that the years and experiences you think were wasted in your life are just the ones that have prepared you for the mission God has for you now. Whatever your age and whatever lies in your past, trust that none of it was wasted. Know that if the God who led Moses and the Israelites through the wilderness now has a mission for you, He will make use of all your past to fit you for the task. And that same God will also lead you wherever it is He calls you to go.

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus  for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” — Ephesians 2:10 (ESV)