Forty Years in the Wilderness
“And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel.”Acts 7:23 (KJV)
At forty, Moses was confident. “And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel.” He thought he knew what God wanted. “For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not.”
He tried to do God’s work in his own strength, and it fell apart. He ran, and spent the next forty years keeping sheep in the wilderness. “And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sina an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush.”
By then, the confident man was gone. When God called him, Moses said, “Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh?” He was finally ready, because he knew he wasn’t enough.
If you feel stuck in a long wilderness season, it may not be wasted time. Sometimes the waiting is the shaping.
Read it yourself
Read Acts 7:20–36. Divide Moses’s life into its three seasons of forty years.
What might God be shaping in you during a season of waiting?
Lord, use my waiting. Shape me in the wilderness, and send me when I’m ready. Amen.