Moses was a man without a land. He was homeless, but not godless. He was a man without a country, but not without a king. Although Moses didn’t choose his life of wandering, God used it to reveal Moses’ faithfulness to follow God. God’s goal for us has little to do with where we are from, it has everything to do with where we are headed. Moses was born to an Israelite woman who couldn’t keep him, set upon the Nile; found by a woman who couldn’t feed him, brought back to Goshen, then back to Egypt, but found no brotherhood. He had no companionship with either the Egyptians or the Hebrew people. He was rejected by the Hebrews, chased by pharaoh and tried to settle in Midian. Eventually Moses will go back to Egypt and then wander 40 years in the wilderness, never even entering the promised land. He rightly names his son Gershom meaning I have sojourned in a foreign land.
Moses’ orphaned life prepared him for his wandering life. For 40 years Moses will lead the children of Israel through the wilderness. He will spend years listening to Israel beg to return to the place where they had settled. But Moses wasn’t accustomed to settling, he had given up perhaps on homes, he was searching for God.
Wandering seems to be a common theme in the lives of God’s servants. Wandering forces us to rely on God, to look not to a place, but a person for security. Human instinct is for security, but God often calls us out of comfort into discomfort. His entire life Moses lived in foreign lands, moving, sojourning, and traveling from place to place. He wasn’t really Egyptian yet he looked the part, he wasn’t really Hebrew yet he was born the part. God needed Moses to be a nomad so that he could mediate between the two peoples. His only loyalty was to Yahweh. He had an audience with Pharaoh because he was raised in the palace, but he had clout with the Hebrews because he was a Levite. In truth He was God’s mouthpiece. Moses will never enter the promised land and even when God calls him up to the mountain to die, Moses body is never found. His home was not this earth.
What an important message for us today in America. My worldly goal is to have a beautiful home, with beautiful furnishings, to be settled, secure, comfortable, to belong in a community, to make a name and be accepted in fact not only do I strive for it, but often I wickedly judge others by their ability to do the same. God permitted Moses to be a man without people or palace or land. Because those things neither defined him nor directed him and they shouldn’t define us or direct us.
Jesus told a disciple, “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the son of man has no where to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20) Moses lived more like Jesus than I do! Jesus spent his earthly life on the move as well, It’s the way of the Lord, even the Holy spirit moved and hovered above the waters. (genesis 1)
Moses nomadic life teaches us that God goes with us. Our God lives! We do not worship a god of stationary stone or dead wood. Those things people go to or carry, but the one true God, He comes to us, Our God carries us. Since the dawn of time men have built high places to meet with their gods, but not our God, not the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, he comes down to meet with us and bids us come follow . There is no greater example of this than a homeless Moses leading the sons of Israel to follow God through a barren desert, who constantly required the people to pack up and relocate.
Our security is not in homes and belonging and settlements, its not in land or comfort or community. Our security is not in where we settle but in who settles us. Our home is Christ, our security is the God who created heaven and earth. Our home is not this earth and our security is not where we live, but who we follow!
A story is told about an American tourist’s visit to the 19th century rabbi, Hofetz Chaim:
Astonished to see that the rabbi’s home was only a simple room filled with books, plus a table and a bench, the tourist asked,
“Rabbi, where is your furniture?”
“Where is yours?” replied the rabbi.
“Mine?” asked the puzzled American. “But I’m a visitor here. I’m only passing through.”
“So am I,” said Hofetz Chaim
my faith place 