Learning To Listen

“Go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

Exodus 3:10

When Christians find themselves wandering in the “wilderness,” there comes a point when they ask themselves, How in the world did I wind up here? If you’re in that place, listen for God’s voice. You just might hear God calling you to your next assignment.

Take Moses’ story, for example. Moses was a Hebrew baby adopted by the daughter of Egypt’s pharaoh. Moses spent his first forty years in Pharaoh’s palace, brought up like royalty. Then, God stirred within Moses the desire to help his people, who had been the Egyptians’ slaves for more than four hundred years.

One day, Moses saw an Egyptian mercilessly beating a Hebrew slave. Enraged, Moses killed the Egyptian. To escape Pharaoh’s wrath, Moses fled to the desert land of Midian, where he remained for four decades—until God spoke: “Go. I am sending you to Pharaoh.”

Moses spent 14,600 days in that desert. Occasionally, while watching over his flock, he must have wondered, How in the world did I wind up here? The Bible doesn’t say much about what Moses did during those forty years, but he must have honored God and learned to recognize His voice. When God suddenly showed up on day 14,601, He revealed Moses’ assignment: to free His chosen people from slavery.

Lord God, thank You for making my assignment very clear to me.