Moses: Facing Rejection

   “If you live for people’s acceptance, you will die from their rejection” (Lecrae).

   I don’t know about you but I know that I have a tendency to want to please people. It is difficult to not to want to please others nowadays. We have to please our bosses. We want to please our families and friends. We want others to think that we are good at different things. We are in a world filled with people who want to be greater, better, and awesome at everything. But, is it possible to be able to please everyone?

   One of my favorite people in the Bible is Moses. I’ve always loved that story since I saw the movie The Prince of Egypt. The other day I was watching the Sight and Sound version and there was a lesson in it that I had not thought of before. When Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh the first time good things did not happen. In fact, Pharaoh made things worse for the Israelites.

   See, originally, the Egyptians gave the Israelites straw to make the bricks required for building. But, after Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, Pharaoh said that the Egyptians would no longer supply the straw for the bricks. The Israelites would have to make the same amount of bricks while collecting the straw to make them.

   Now, I don’t know about you, but I am already busy and beat up doing my normal routine and I am not a slave. I am pretty sure that the Israelites were not happy with their new situation. They already felt that God had betrayed them because they were slaves for so many years. Now they had to do more work because God sent a deliverer to save them.

   At this point Moses and Aaron were probably feeling pretty down. They were also probably rejected by their fellow Israelites. They might have even doubted God and thought about giving up. It’s your typical Israelite (and human) reaction. We fail at something or it gets too hard so we want to give up.

   Could you imagine what would have happened if Moses and Aaron would have given up because they were unable to please their people? But they did not give up. They did not give up because they knew that God had a greater plan. Do you think they expected it to take that long for them to be set free? Do you think that they expected to have that many plagues? It took a lot and people were probably not happy with them. But, they did not give up. It did not matter that people did not like them they were focused on one thing: God.

   I’ve said in past blogs that there is one way for us to care about others but not care what they think about us: we need to have peace in God. Moses and Aaron had their eyes fixed on God. They believed that God called them to deliver the Israelites. It did not matter what the others thought about them. They knew what they had to do.

   So, will you be a people pleaser, or will you do what God calls you to do? Will you believe God has a plan, even when it is hard to believe or understand? Will you keep your eyes fixed on God?

   Exodus 5, 2 Corinthians 4:18, Proverbs 3:5-6
   Image found here.