I've been reading Exodus 2 and seeing again the exciting patterns that are set before us in Moses' life.
Moses had discovered a little more about who he was, was moving away from the familiar of his upbringing and then got so zealous about it that he killed someone. He then freaked out, Pharaoh found out, and he had to run for his life. Doesn't look like the best start, but I know I've done some pretty messy things myself!
So, Moses finds himself in Midian sitting by a well. In that place he met some nice girls, scared away some shepherds, helped the girls get water, and then eventually was invited home for dinner. He was the guy who came for dinner and stayed a long time...well, until God moved him into the next phase of his life.
It's such a great picture of what to do when you don't know what to do!
It's just a time to sit down and draw deeply out of everything we know of God. To be still and know He exists even if we don't know anything else right then. To read the stories of the bible heroes and see that they had valleys and mountaintops in their lives, and to look below the obvious for the patterns that are set out for us. Like the woman at the well who met and talked with Jesus and was given the gift of friendship and a drink of eternal life, so also Moses got to move forward from that place and ended up with a life and a wife!
For Moses the turning point came at the well. For many of us the turning point comes when we are willing to sit still for a moment and allow God to flow in and around our lives rather than being busy doing it all for ourselves.
Look what happened at the well: It was a place where people gathered. It was a refreshing/drinking place. It was a place of meeting and encounter with new people. So often we move into isolation when struggling, but Moses actually sat down where he knew people would come and go. Maybe we should consider where and how we drink from the well, and know where we will go when we need to sit with God for a moment.
In this season that points us to the new life that came with the birth of Jesus Christ let's remember that He came to give us life, He came to bring us water we could drink that would sustain us forever. What an amazing time of remembrance this is, and how wonderful to celebrate it with others.
