Out Our Way: Sitting by the well in Midian

"Pharaoh sought to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well." Exodus 2:15

Out our way, folks who regularly ride know that it's not a question of "if" you will one day get tossed, but "when." Some folks ride better than others, some have gentler horses, and maybe some are just lucky.  But nearly all of us get dumped somewhere long the way. As you who are faithful readers know, although Goliath is gentleman and rarely gives me trouble, he has deposited me rather firmly on the ground more than once. Indeed, I am still picking out a few stickers from the time he dropped me into the cactus. But if you are going to ride, you have to accept that you might get dumped along the way - and if you do, you either quit or you get back on.

The same thing is true in life, for there are risks in just living - and few of us get through it without a few scratches and bumps along the way. Sometimes we even get badly hurt. But we still have to get back up and get back on or just give up and quit. It is not easy to do, especially if that bonehead hoss won't stand still and give you a chance to step up and get back on.  Sometimes you just have to wait.

A friend of mine back east, who knows all my frustrations and troubles this past year - all the losses and hurts I have endured since last May - shared with me the story of Moses at the well. Talk about getting dumped! Moses, the great general and prince of Egypt has lost it all! He is a fugitive and all his dreams and hopes for the future have been snatched away.  From the comfortable palaces and wealth he has known he is cast out into the wilderness. Instead of the rich and fertile green Nile Valley he once took for granted as his own, he now sits beside a dirty little mud hole in the barren wastelands of Midian.  How the mighty have fallen!

My friend asked me to consider how deep Moses' despair and sense of loss must have been, and as I did I realized that despite not facing such a harsh degree of despair that he did, our situations were somewhat similar. I was once a promising young man, a rising "star" in the Church and pretty successful in my ministry. And then, in the space of a few years, it was gone.  I was forced out of my ministry in a large urban congregation and lost my house and much of my savings as well as my confidence and very nearly my ministry. This past year it got even worse as I lost my health, my wife and my sense of purpose. Indeed this has been a year of wandering in the wilderness of despair as I look about the bleak landscape and see all I have lost.

My friend understood this and suggested I consider Moses at the well. Why is he there? How long has he been sitting there? Where shall he go? What shall he do?   No answer.  He just sits by the well in the wilderness.

Eventually of course, things change. Beautiful Zipporah and her sisters come to the well and from them he meets Jethro, the Priest of Midian. He goes to work for Jethro as a humble shepherd, marries Zipporah and learns to embrace his wilderness. AND THEN GOD SPEAKS. The burning bush - the voice of the Almighty - and the commission to lead the Exodus of God's people out of Egyptian slavery and into the Promised Land where they will become a great nation and make the world aware that indeed the Lord lives!

Moses didn't want to be in the wilderness. He had been a prince and a general, and now he was only a shepherd. But God had plans for him that Moses could never have dreamed of, greater and longer lasting than the kingdoms and legacies of even the most powerful pharaoh, king, or emperor. But Moses knew none of this as he sat by that obscure well in the middle of nowhere. My friend suggested that my disappointment and pain were my time in the wilderness - and no one knows how long it will last, or what may come next.   Like Moses, I can only sit by the well and wait. The God, whose name Moses would one day learn is "I Am," has His own time and ways. I cannot see His plan right now. I don't know what will yet come to pass.  I can just sit with Moses, by the well in Midian, and wait for what He will send. And because, through Christ, I know He actually does love me and has never deserted me despite all these painful trials, I sit by the well with greater hope and confidence than Moses could.

So, move over, Moses, and I will wait at the well with you.

  (John Bruington is the pastor at First Presbyterian Church. Sermons, columns and children's messages can be viewed on the Church website at http://www.havrepres.org.)