GOD TURNED A DESERT INTO GALAXY.
We live in the new age of instant. People believe and anticipate that life is always fair. Everything must happen just at a flip of a finger. When it doesn’t occur as easily and quickly as we expect, we become angry, agitated depressed, discouraged and complaining; feel like quitting or throwing in the towel. The virtues of patience and perseverance are not invoked and no longer common place. People in this age do not endure pains and hassles; they want things happen just now or pack it up. No one wants to walk out his/her salvation/blessings but a great number people wants miracles (God’s interventions). Like Apostle Paul, we desire to know God and the power of resurrection but diverge and diverse in sharing the fellowship of His sufferings or becoming like Him in His death (Phil 3:10). We are poised for the crown but not through the cross. A popular Reggae Musician had once sang, “Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.” Surprisingly, death may be the only vehicle heading towards heaven.
Jesus said, in this world we shall pass through trials and tribulations but we say it would not happen to us. We are for signs and wonders, in double, double portion. Indeed, everyone that God used in the scripture passed through a kind of a desert. For example: Joseph passed through the Pit, and then the Prison before reaching the Palace. Daniel went through the pit/den of lions before made the third most powerful man in his kingdom. Moses went through a desert before God turned it into galaxy. We shall examine here his experience of desert and hopefully it will help us in passing through whatever deserts in our Christian race.
Moses was born from the house of Levi (both parents were Levi’s) and lived in Egypt at a time the King ordered the killing of any male child born to the Jews (Israelites). His parents hid him for three months and after then they hid him in a basket made of reeds, covered with tars so as to float in case it falls into water. They put the basket among tall stalks of grasses at the edge of River Nile; not on the ground so that wild crawling animals couldn’t swallow or harm him. Pharaoh’s daughter’s mates found and brought him to the Princess of Egypt. The boy, Moses was handsome and his cry touched the Princess. The Princess of Egypt became empathetic and adopted him. She named him, Moses – because “he was drawn from the water.” He was raised in the King’s place as a betrothed son and an heir apparent to the throne. Do you still remember where you were drawn from and the meaning of your name? Many people in this multi-national society have forgotten where they were drawn from and others don’t know that meaning of their names. God will have to set them up and allow ugly events to happen in their lives to draw them to redefining and pursuing their destiny.
When Moses had grown up and became a man, he went out to see how his brethren were doing task job in the field. He saw an Egyptian beating up a Hebrew. He was angered and hit the Egyptian and killed him. Moses hurriedly buried him in the sand. Unfortunately for Moses, his internal enemy saw him. The next day, he met two Hebrew men fighting and he tried to intervene and separate them. One of them asked him, do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian a day before? Moses feared that the cat could have been let out of the bag and Pharaoh shall hunt him. He fled and dwelt in Midian. The priest of Midian had 7 daughters and they went to draw water from the well and feed their father’s flock. Some shepherds came and drove them away but Moses stood for them and helped fetch the water they needed and fed their flock. The news of that exceptional goodness reached their father. Their father sent for the man who had shown such benevolence to have some meal in appreciation. Moses responded and their father persuaded him to live with them. He accepted, lived with them and tended the flocks of the priest of Midian. The priest gave him his daughter – Zipporah to marry and he had a son, through her.
While tending the flocks of Jethro, his father in law, the priest of Median, he led the flock through the back of the desert and came to Herob, the mountain of God. An Angel of God appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush. The scene was so strange, he turned and looked and behold the bush was burning with fire but the bush was not consumed. Moses turned around and walked towards the place the bush was burning to have a closer look at the unusual incident. He wondered why the flame was burning but the bush was not burning (without being consumed). Surprisingly, God called him out of the midst of the burning bush saying, Moses, Moses……Listen to me brethren, God speaks to us in words and events. He may use any incident to call your attention if only you care to listen, turn and look.
It does not matter where you are and how life treats you. It does not matter what height you fell from or how devastated your situation is. When God’s hand is on you, He turns your situation around in a special (uncommon) way. The shepherds by passed the desert because there was nothing to fetch from there – no greens and no water; was extremely dehydrating for both shepherd and sheep. To avoid or minimize the severity climatic condition, Moses took the flocks through the back of the mountain. In all these, God was simply setting his stage. Beyond human expectation, in the mystery only God can do, God turned the despised desert into a Galaxy. Do you care who despised you? Do you turn to see what is happening around you, in your house, at your work and Church, on the road or inside you? You care to know, that’s why you turn to look. You will see something surprising, very uncommon, and very unusual……! Bush burning but the bush is not consumed?
Every Christian needs a burning bush experience. The experience is undeniable, dramatic and uncommon. Some ministers are afraid to accept our mantle and pursue our callings. We hide for years under someone who could not dissent God’s purpose and mission for your life. I happened to be in a Church where a prophet prophesied to a Pastor in his Church that he knew he wanted to leave and pursue his calling. If he leaves without his release, he would make his life miserable. Moses was afraid and said to God, “who am I to go to Pharaoh and lead your people from Egypt? God answered, “This will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you (Exodus 3:11-12). The burning bush was a captivating and undeniable sign to Moses signifying what it points at than what it is. The burning bush experience created a foundation for Moses faith.
God allows events into our lives to build a platform underneath our faith. Someone else’s experience could only be an incentive which is invaluable unless it leads to a burning bush experience – a place where God is so real, so personal and so trilling; undisputable, doubtless and inexcusable. Such experience would definitely change his life for better; even when he experiences trials and tribulations, the conviction is so strong, captivating and compelling that he will no longer doubt or rebel. That God of the burning Bush because the God of the Exodus and consequently, the God of the Red Sea deliverance. Moses power and strength to face the challenges of leadership of the stubborn Israelites and made exploits for God came from his conviction and belief in the God of the Burning Bush. The very reason I desire my personal Burning Bush experience. It is my prayers for every Christian to encounter the Burning bush.
The desert was a despised bush, avoided and bypassed by shepherds because it was severe and inhabitable. Some people are despised, ignored, neglected, avoided and looked down on; treated as a nobody. I announce to you that your day of recognition has come. Your day of performance is insight. This season you will experience something uncommon, unusual and unexplainable. Moses had passed through that spot severally and had never experienced or seen such sight. When you see something extra-ordinary or uncommon, you should be attracted to find out what it is. It could be God is showing you something He has been trying to speak to you but you did not pay attention.
Moses was born in an unusual circumstance, given uncommon name by Pharaoh’s daughter and raised in an unusual home. The God of heaven and earth was with him and directing his path. He sits at mercy’s seat and care for those who have nobody to help them. He turned chaos into cosmos, and filled all the empty places in the universe. That same God can turn your situation around and cause your breakthrough to happen supernaturally. That same God remembered Noah and caused the water to rescind. He also turned ordinary water into unusual wine in a wedding gathering in Cana. There is nothing impossible with God. All you need is to follow and trust HIM.
The town Nazareth was once despised because nothing good or noteworthy ever happened there. It was a layback place with nothing of recognition. Each time that city was made mentioned of it was treated with a wave of hand. But a Son of great attributes with supernatural abilities emerged from Nazareth. That changed her story. That same God is still in the business of change and perfection. Why do you care about those who despise you? They do so for only a season and it shall expire. They neither determine your destiny nor hold your future. Even if someone talks down or ridicules you or your family or town, it is only a motivation to turn the setback into comes back. The ridicule and mockery could only provoke God to act in your favor. He or she wants you to cry like Jabez or Jacob to your Creator for He/she has asked: where is your God? The God who turned sorrow into favor and supplanter into Blessings shall come to your rescue.
Whoever believed that towns like Nazareth, Cana, Gad or even Nineveh, etc would be known anywhere in history? However the God that fetches water with a basket to shame those who had pots and could not fetch intervenes and situations changed. Likewise, Jephthah, the son of a prostitute and the father was a Gilead who was despised by his brethren later became a king in the same city he was driven away (Judges 11). The despised man became a desired man; the poor son of a prostitute became a rich King and won great wars. What life’s desert are you in or going through? Be aware that there is nothing that happens to you that is new to humanity. It has happened somewhere to somebody. Just take your eyes off the problems and fasten them on the Lord Jesus Christ. Stand still and hold on (do not quit) for your season of wetness shall over take and rehabilitate the dryness of the desert resulting into divine restoration. Know that God has not finished with you; stay on course and follow His leading, He turns impossibility into possibility. God is the one who had started a good work in you and I am certain that He won’t stop before it is complete on the day that Christ returns (Philippians 1:6).
Reach: Evangelist/Elder Ogbonnaya, Godswill at email: weefreeministries@yahoo.com or P. O. Box 720035, Houston, Texas, 77272; Web: www.weefreeministries.org; Call: 8328813929 (Cell).