I love the AT&T flashmob commercial. I could totally be that guy: so into getting my part right that I totally lose track of everything around me. But the message of the commercial is clear: Timing is everything.
I’m not sure there’s a better example in the Bible of this than Moses. In chapter 2, we’re introduced to Moses. He was raised in Pharaoh’s house, and would have had the education fitting for a prince of Egypt. He could probably speak, read and write in multiple languages, and there’s evidence he’d led armies in battle. But through it all, he retained his Hebrew identity. It surely bothered him to see his extended family in bondage while he lived in the lap of luxury – and he probably knew of the prophecies foretelling the eventual divine deliverance of God’s people. With that background in mind, there’s more in play than just righteous anger when Moses kills the Egyptian in Exodus 2. Moses – who seems to have realized that he had been chosen, gifted, trained and ideally positioned precisely to deliver God’s people – decided to save God’s people on his own.
It didn’t go as planned. The Israelites didn’t exactly hail Moses as deliverer and rise up against their overseers, and when Pharaoh found out about it, he was clearly unwilling to continue to overlook Moses’ race any longer. Broken and alone – and no doubt a little confused – Moses fled into the desert. Why hadn’t God supported Him? Did God not want to deliver His own people?
Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever charged in where you felt like God wanted to use you for great things… only to feel like the guy in the AT&T commercial, out there on your own? I know I have. In every case – like Moses (and the guy in the commercial) – I’ve gotten ahead of God’s timing because I was more concerned with my role than with where I fit in the larger story. And inevitably, I forced things…with predictably bad results. As Phil said Sunday: “We’re just not God.”
In hindsight, Moses wasn’t wrong about his part in God’s plan. God had uniquely equipped him to lead – heck, to create – a nation out of a people that had known nothing but slavery and oppression for generations. But he needed to wait on God’s timing.
What has God called and equipped you to do? Maybe even more to the point: where is your ambition? Do you want to be great? Or do you simply want to play the role He has for you in His great story? To be honest, I think more often than not, I want to do great things for God mainly because I want to be great. Sure, it’s not from totally wrong motives, just like it wasn’t wrong for Moses to stand up for the Israelites. But when we jump the gun and refuse to wait for God’s timing, we hijack God’s story.
Christ has something incredibly significant for you to do. In fact, before you were born, He had great things laid out for you to do. But you can only succeed in His time, according to His plan and as a part of His body. Are you willing to make it all about Him… and not you?
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