Don’t Lose Heart, Because God Is Not Finished with You Yet
Share
“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…When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian” (Exodus 2:11-12, 15).
There have been many times in my life where it seemed that it was over, the curtain had closed, and the dream had died. It looked like the situation was unchangeable, that I had blown the opportunity and simply could not recover. And in fact, I knew that the problem had morphed into something far beyond my personal strength to overcome.
But God has proven to me time and again that even if we have problems that seem impossible to overcome, He is the author and finisher of our faith and nothing is impossible with Him!
We call God our Healer, and He is Deliverer, Provider, Advocate, Protector, Restorer, Redeemer, and so much more. We have a lot of titles that we ascribe to the attributes of God, but there are many times in my life when what I need more than anything is for God to be a Finisher.
“…Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).
The definition of a “finisher” is one (a workman or craftsman) who finishes, completes or perfects the final tasks in a manufacturing process. And if God is a Finisher – then if I am stuck in turmoil, overwhelmed, or struggling against an apparent impossibility – I am comforted by knowing that clearly, God is not finished!
“I am sure of this; that He who has begun a good work in you will carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).
So if you think there is no light at the end of your tunnel, be encouraged – God is not finished!
Enter Moses
Moses was an exceptional child.
At a time when male Hebrew children were being killed en masse by Pharaoh's decree, Moses was miraculously saved by Pharaoh’s daughter and adopted; in one moment, he transitioned from a Hebrew slave, to a prince in the Egyptian palace.
Moses experienced all of the privileges of the palace; he had the best education, clothing, ate the finest foods, and may have even been in line to the throne.
He was loved and trusted by the only family he had known. Josephus, the ancient historian, wrote that when the Ethiopians attacked Egypt, Pharaoh put Moses in charge of the Egyptian army. Moses secured the victory and saved the nation of Egypt.
But this same Moses made some pretty serious and life changing mistakes; he became a murderer, and fled everything and everyone he knew in Egypt. He landed in a strange land among strange people, and was reduced to tending someone else’s sheep on the backside of a desert, just to survive.
And surely he was asking himself the question we’ve probably all asked at times – how did I get here? How did I get myself into this mess? How did we get to this place of divorce? How did I become so angry and bitter, and so cynical?
And we wind up where we least expected. But why?
When Right Goes Wrong
Moses had it all, but he was unsettled. He was living in the Egyptian palace, but he became increasingly angered by the mistreatment of his people, the Hebrew slaves.
The feeling was righteous. The outrage was righteous. His sense of wanting to intervene was also righteous.
On that fateful day, he witnesses an Egyptian beating a slave, and the moral outrage in him rises up to defend the victim, and he kills the Egyptian and hides the body. He was expressing his innate destiny as a deliverer of the Hebrew people, but outside of God’s timing and will.
When Pharaoh learned about the incident, Moses discovered a hard reality of life: sometimes right can go horribly wrong.
You can have good intentions…
You can marry for life…
You can love and nurture your child…
You can try to help someone…
You can trust someone…
…but right goes wrong.
You can have a plan for your life: go to a certain school, get a particular degree, graduate at a specific time, score a lucrative job, marry your dream spouse, have 2.5 perfect kids. The right plan, the right process, but somewhere along the line you discover that your right plan went horribly wrong.
You even had the right intentions and pure motives, but things went sideways and turned out much differently than you envisioned, and you find yourself in a place on the backside of a desert wondering, how did I get here?
And not only do you ask that question, but you also come to an erroneous conclusion (no doubt aided by the voice of the enemy), that because you made a bad mistake, that it is all over.
God Can Bring Right Out of Our Mistakes
What is impossible with man is possible with God. He can take our wrong turns, wrong choices, and wrong decisions, and bring right out of it.
Moses was asking, how in the world did I get here?
I’m a prince, but I’m tending someone else’s sheep.
I’m highly educated, but I have a job that requires no education.
I am privileged, but I have the job of a peasant.
I understand the science of Egypt, I am a military hero, I was in line for the throne of Egypt, but now I’m forced to learn survival skills for how to exist in a wilderness.
God still had a plan for Moses. Moses didn’t know it in the moment, but God was still planning to use him to deliver the Hebrew people, even though he initially went about it the wrong way.
What Moses didn’t know was that even though his God-given “calling” was to be a deliverer of the Hebrews, he wasn’t ready for it until his wilderness experience on the backside of a mountain, tending a flock of sheep.
He had to be trained, not only in the ways of the Egyptians, but also in the ways of the wilderness. God knew when he would lead those slaves out of Egypt, he was going to shepherd them through forty years in the wilderness. God took Moses’ wrong and brought right out of it.
Don’t misunderstand. God doesn’t condone or ignore our wrongs. He is not “okay” with it, and He will often allow us to experience the consequence of our wrongs. Indeed, Moses’ rash act cost him forty years of exile and the loss of his family and friends.
But as consequential as our wrongs can be, our God takes even our wrongs and brings right out of them. He won’t quit on His plans because you complicated things. He won’t abandon and forget you because you failed. He won’t write you off, and cancel your destiny because you did wrong.
And you know why? Because He is a Finisher!
Sometimes God Sets Stuff on Fire
“Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, ‘I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.’ So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then He said, ‘Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.’ Moreover He said, ‘I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God” (Exodus 3:1-6).
In the dry desert heat, bushes burned all the time. But Moses noticed something different about this bush – not only was it on fire, but it was not being burnt up. This miracle got Moses’ attention. This bush on fire caused him to stop what he was doing and pause the ordinary course of his life to think a bit introspectively.
Has God ever lit anything on fire in your life in order to get your attention?
Is there something burning in your life that no matter how hard you try, how hard you pray, or how long you cry, you can’t seem to get it to stop burning? Possibly, the God of Heaven may just want to get your attention.
Possibly, He may just want to talk with you, to give you a fresh perspective. He may just want to interrupt your survival mentality and begin to give you success.
When something is burning in an unusual way in your life, stop, take a look, and listen to what He is trying to tell you.
It’s great advice. Get into your prayer closet and seek the Lord. Commune with your Heavenly Father. Talk to Him; and most importantly listen to Him before things go up in flames!
When God Speaks
Moses’ mistake must have felt like failure and a loss of destiny. He had blown it by unrighteous murder and could never live his dream again. And to this man Moses, who felt unworthy, unfit, unholy, unusable and unimportant, God said:
“So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am’” (Exodus 3:4).
You may think God has forgotten you because you failed Him, but the Finisher never forgets.
God Always Finishes What He’s Started
God had to speak with Moses to undo forty years of regret, forty years of backsliding, forty years of mental anguish and “what ifs.” What if…
I had handled things differently?
I never left the palace?
I had waited on God?
I didn’t kill the Egyptian?
But God is a Finisher and He knew how to draw Moses out of hiding, shame and regret, and back into his God-given destiny
“He said, ‘I am the God of your father — the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6).
I am the God of Abraham and Isaac – Moses understood that. But then God said, and I am the God of Jacob. And I believe Moses thought to himself, Jacob? Don’t You mean Israel?
Jacob was the deceiver, the con man, the betrayer who split up families and caused heartache and problems. Israel, the great patriarch, was the person Jacob became after repentance and transformation by God.
Exactly, Moses!
No, God didn’t stutter. He was reminding Moses that He is the God of our successes and failures, our right steps and wrong steps, our hang ups, mess ups, and identity issues.
He is the God of it all. And He needed to remind Moses that even after forty years, He was not finished with his story yet; his destiny as a deliverer was still waiting for Moses to fulfill.
And for everyone who has been lied to by the enemy, who told you that you’ve made too many mistakes and you missed your opportunity and lost out on your destiny, God says nothing is impossible for him who believes. It’s time for you to get up and shake it off, because God is a finisher, and He is not yet done with your life!
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/PATSTOCK
