Poor Moses.
He spent most of his life helping the Israelites escape slavery and get out of Egypt.
He leads them out of slavery into the Holy land... the land God promises the Israelites.
But Moses never actually gets to go into the promised land.
(I feel like we didn’t talk about that part much in Sunday school.)
God tells him he won’t get to see the beautiful land, “a land flowing with milk and honey.” Leviticus 20:24
(This is because of Moses’ sin and disobedience.. I encourage you to read the whole story!)
Moses won’t get to see the place He has been fighting to get the Israelites to for 40 years.
40 long and hard years. Years of being questioned and complained to. Years of having to beg God to have mercy on his fellow Israelites. Years of exhaustion.
He won’t get to live in the place He has been praying and working for.
God even tells Moses to hand the reins over to Joshua, a younger man, who will be the one who leads the Israelites into the promised land, and Moses will die.
“But commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead this people across and will cause them to inherit the land that you will see.” Deuteronomy 3:28
Not only is Moses to hand the reins over to Joshua, but Moses is to encourage and strengthen Joshua.
Encourage and strengthen the guy who walks in after all of Moses’s hard work and gets all the glory.
I really feel for Moses here. I know in my flesh, I wouldn’t be able to do that.
I can’t imagine spending my whole life working towards something, only to see someone else getting it.
Although, in my own smaller ways, I can relate.
Can you?
Have you ever done the hard work of something to watch someone else get the glory?
Have you ever watched from the sidelines as someone else got exactly what you wanted?
It hurts.
It doesn’t feel fair.
It’s so easy for jealousy, envy and resentment to sink deeply into our souls.
Yet, Moses follows through.
He completes the task at hand.
He does what God calls Him to, even if he doesn’t get to live in the promised land.
My goodness, how Moses must have had to “die to self.”
He must have had to have his eyes fixed on glorifying God rather than getting any glory for himself.
I can’t help but wonder what life would be like if we lived more like that, too.
Yes, we can acknowledge when it hurts that other people get what we want...
But instead of sitting in our bitterness, what if we focused more on the purpose and plan God has for us.
Even if it’s not the plan we want.
Even if it’s not the shiniest and most glamorous plan.
Moses probably didn’t know at the time, when he was handing over all he worked for to Joshua, that he would end up being one of the most prominent people in God’s story.
That He would be talked about for the rest of history.
Because that’s not why Moses did what he did.
So, when those feelings come creeping in when we see people have what we want, we can think of Moses.
We can remember that our life and our purpose is much bigger than ourselves and is a part of a much larger story.
We might not get everything that we want, but if we are obedient, we will be used exactly how we are supposed to be.
And we might even find that what we thought we wanted actually wasn’t what was best.
God might change our heart and even change our heart's desires.
There's a specific purpose for each of our lives.
When we really believe that, we can let go of the envy towards others and focus on the bigger picture.
Not only that, but it can even free us to encourage, uplift and love those who have what we want.
It’s so freeing to life a life hand in hand with Jesus, knowing that He will bring us exactly where He needs us to be.
So, let’s be like Moses in this way.
Let’s fix our eyes on God over our fleshly desires.
Because the truth is there is nothing we will find more satisfying and fulfilling than living in His will for us.
~Kelli Bachara, The Unraveling Blog