October 19, 2023

Exodus 3: 1, 2 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law . . . and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him . . . (NIV) 

Make the most of every opportunity, even the ones you wish you didn’t have.*

Years ago, when I moved to a new community, the job I hoped for didn’t pan out soon enough. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, so they say, so when I was offered a job in a local bank, I took it. Before I even started at the bank, the position I really wanted became available. I turned it down because I had already committed to working at the bank and I felt that was the right thing to do. I ended up hating my job as a teller but if I hadn’t been working at the bank, I never would have met the first person in the God-arranged chain of events which led me to a 25-year career in a job I loved.

I have often compared my short tenure as a bank teller to Moses’ 40-year stint as a shepherd: we were just killing time until God revealed his plan. But I have been looking at it all wrong. Tending sheep was God’s plan for Moses. Waiting on cranky bank customers was God’s plan for me. Until it wasn’t. If Moses had passed up his opportunity to learn the fine art of sheep-herding, he would have missed connecting with the angel of the Lord in the desert. If you or I don’t go where God leads us today, we could miss our connection to God’s next plan.

Do you feel like you are just killing time until God reveals his plan for your life? Consider the possibility that you are wasting opportunities. Perhaps today is the plan. While you are waiting for God’s BIG calling, maybe you are overlooking the small thing he is calling you to do today. It isn’t just the grand gestures that can have eternal consequences.

We are responsible for the strategic employment of our time.*