I’ve always had a soft spot for Moses. One of the Bible’s most prolific action figures endured bulrushes in a basket of a crocodile-invested river, was startled by a burning bush, found himself having to listen to whining Israelites, kept getting calls from God asking him to do some pretty difficult things—for over forty years. And after all this, one costly mistake kept him from entering the Promised Land.
Flip through Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers—check the number of times you see the phrase, “And the Lord spake unto Moses….”
It seems every time Moses turned around, he had another directive or message. Sometimes it was a to-do list. Other times he was told what not to do. To make matters even more difficult, the wandering wilderness Israelites weren’t exactly the most receptive audience.
Moses was one of the leading Old Testament go-betweens for good reason. He was a person with a sense of right and wrong. Brave. An attentive listener. Scripture (Numbers 12:3) also tells us he was humble, “the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.” We know he did not forsake his incredibly long and difficult assignment.
Yet a funny -as in ironic--thing happened on the way to Canaan. The man who had worked so hard and put up with so much was denied. Moses’s disobedience seemed to me like a small infraction, but God ruled it a turnover, flagged him with a personal foul for striking the rock, and disqualified him from entering the endzone with the Israelites. (I’m miffed about the harshness of the punishment and will debate with God in eternity).
Still, what Moses accomplished with his life overshadows the untimely penalty. It was Moses who led Caleb and Joshua, who in turn led Deborah and Barak. The pattern continued throughout the Bible’s narrative and, as I wrote last week, remains with us today: good people walk among us who display moral fortitude, humility, direction, and courage. If we are receptive, we can learn from them how to pass along these qualities for those who come after us.
Moses was one of those leaders. I want to wear his jersey.
Snyder, Texas, native Sue Jane Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher whose thought-provoking commentary appears occasionally in several West Texas newspapers, including The Texas Spur and The Caprock Courier.
