When Moses Sat at the Well

Tuesday, August 29, 2023

Many years later, when Moses had grown up, he went out to visit his own people, the Hebrews, and he saw how hard they were forced to work.  During his visit, he saw an Egyptian beating one of his fellow Hebrews.  After looking in all directions to make sure no one was watching, Moses killed the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand.  The next day, when Moses went out to visit his people again, he saw two Hebrew men fighting.  “Why are you beating up your friend?” Moses said to the one who had started the fight.  The man replied, “Who appointed you to be our prince and judge?  Are you going to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?”  Then Moses was afraid, thinking, “Everyone knows what I did.”  And sure enough, Pharaoh heard what had happened, and he tried to kill Moses.  But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in the land of Midian.  When Moses arrived in Midian, he sat down beside a well.  Exodus 2:11-15

Even people with a marginal connection with church and Scripture know of Moses’ great events, dividing the waters, getting more water to gush from a rock, the Ten Commandments, and so-on.  But today’s text takes us back to long-before the hero stuff. 

The context is that Moses has just found out his true heritage is Hebrew, not Egyptian.  When, at age 40, you find out your whole history has been hidden from you, it’s bound to produce a crisis, filled with poor knee-jerk reaction choices.  For the one chosen by God to lead Israel out of bondage, that is an understatement.  Before he even begins to understand the culture from which he was bred, Moses begins to use the power-tactics of Egyptian taskmasters to right the wrongs of Egyptian domination…killing, threats, and totalitarian bondage.  He was wrong.

As a result, Moses finds himself banished to the wilderness.  He arrives at Midian and sits down at the well, where he meets Zipporah, whom he eventually marries, and it leads him to all the hero-stuff when he starts doing things God’s way. 

But, for this moment, let’s look down the deep well where Moses was sitting.  It wasn’t a new age reflecting pool…this was a life-giving watering hole for sheep.  But for Moses it was the needed rest from fleeing Pharoah’s threats.  We can only imagine the thoughts running through Moses’ mind as he looks down the hole:

·       Oh…I’ve really messed it up!

·       Life will never be the same.

·       What was I thinking?

In all transparency, this is exactly what I have said at times.  In retrospect, each time I’ve gone to that well, it was always after a period of failing to do things God’s way.   And I think that is always God’s way…He leads us through the wilderness of wondering to give us time to pray, understand our wrong direction, and repent.  That took 40 more years for Moses, but at the end, the bush burned brightly, and he learned to say:  thus saith the Lord, instead of, listen to me! 

As with Robert Frost’s poem about two roads diverging in a yellow forest, Moses eventually took the one less traveled by, and that…made all the difference.

For You Today 

For any of us who truly admits what we find when we stare down the well of our history, the road less-traveled is always God’s way.  In our disobedience we find He dips into the cool, life-giving water, and offers us a better way.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©