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The first item in the outline of the article simply states that Moses was somebody else before his call and there was transformation...




The first item in the outline of the article simply states that Moses was somebody else before his call and there was transformation after his call.(1) One point that I would like to focus for reflection here is “his going out.” It is very symbolical because it means actually getting out the present state in life. It is going out of “his own world.” It made me ask myself, what I have discovered outside my own world after I gave up my Engineering course just for the sake of having more time to give formation programs to the youth of my Diocese. 

Outside the privileged life of Moses, there was oddity and great difference but this had changed him. I believe that these experiences in this period of his life gave him the taste of a rough life that somehow gave him the strength to be strong later in his life in the desert with the people.
In this first part it was stated God did not tell him to intervene with the affairs of the people; Moses did it by himself, assuming his own leadership. At the turn of the story, when he was called by God, he was now then “sent” by the Lord, with the call to be a leader.[1] In these two comparisons, it clearly shows that there is a big difference between endeavors made by oneself and endeavors mandated or asked by God to be done.(2)
 
It is but a clear indication of human nature – to doubt, to question, to recede responsibility. Sometimes receding to accept responsibility may show meekness and humility but actually it is the other way around. It resounds our own, my own self too at times. As Conroy have said and I quote “Personal inadequacy is not a feeling limited to Moses. We all can have it at times to.”[2] Indeed it is good to know that a leader as great as Moses been like this too. But power is made perfect in weakness. God’s power can be blocked if we try to proceed to it by our own strength. (3)

Bringing up the difficulty in mission by thinking ahead shows Moses’ creating his own difficulties, forgetting that He is with Him. Imagination of how it will be and what sort of difficulties we are to meet paralyzes us. This implies thinking of oneself “without” the trust in God’s hand. Because really indeed things would be impossible if it is only oneself who dares to do everything.(4) This statement struck me because I am used to think ahead as they say. But still forward-looking attitude is still good as long as it is looked at the point of view of God’s intermingled within things being thought of, in other words, looking at the positive outcome and not the negative ones.

In order to go on with the seemingly main theme throughout the topic, it is apt to mention that it is but right to really know that whom to depend to. Moses needed to know who the one who called Him. I have to know the God who called me too. Likewise it also implies knowing oneself so as the self will know what he is being sent to or what he/she is being asked to do, in order to response to the call, in order to accept the inadequacies in the self so as he/she would depend on the one calling. (5) We should know who has called us. We are not serving a theoretical ideal, an abstract ideology; we are in the service of a personal God.[3]

 In knowing God, it is but necessary that we put it into our minds that he cannot be categorized nor be defined in just human terms. This was evident in the article as it progress in showing how Moses have had his objections to the Lord. God cannot be categorized but can come to meet us[4]. Therefore, we should ask the grace of knowing God, and I believe that this grace can only be received if we have faith that he who gives it is real and true. “Every call is simultaneously a call to grow in service and a call to grow in prayerful knowledge of the one who is calling us”[5] and they always go together. Without the manifestation of God, the coming of the knowledge of God in us, everything would still be useless.

Moses was a man of action, a man of initiative, and one could understand that he is not a man of long speeches. I agree to that because I find resonance his same qualities. Men of action are not interested in making long speeches (long reflections maybe, yes). But I believe that this inadequacy is nothing if God is allowed to be the one to speak through one’s own mouth.(6) I think I should remind myself of that too. 

Sometimes despite the limited knowledge of our own self, even if we know we can, we make excuses because of several reasons – security, love of ones life, peace of one’s mind – therefore afraid to serve, to be asked to do something, to be sent, to move and to be moved by somebody else.(7) Therefore it just shows that it also takes time to accept calls. Moses’ story may show it as sudden and all there immediately but considering that the scriptures were written as inspiration and inspiration also comes out of it, as a reflection and reflections also comes out of it. The process of responding to our call continues over years, all the years of our life. We are continually being called, being asked to renew our response to that call. It does not happen once and for all.[6] Some have difficulties than others, others easy at the start and later crisis comes near the end. Everything happens in accordance to the individual treatment of God to us.

I’d like to end my reflection through the last part of the outline of the topic about Moses’ leadership as presented by Conroy. Id like to summarize it too by using his three areas of relationships – between God and Moses, between Moses and the people, between God and the people. Although actually, the whole point of the topic is in the seven points I have highlighted, aforementioned above.

There are three points that a Leader chosen by God may remember or be reminded of:
(1)   Faithfulness and belief in the one who called; the one who sent;
(2)   A good leader should have the humility to accept advice and to delegate responsibility, prayerful, do not always listen to their assistants when it is of legalistic point of view
(3)   Trust in the Lord and have it always in his way not one’s own self projection

I end here and quote “Our journey through life, our journey of leadership, may seem to come to an end when it is incomplete, when all things are not done…If the Lord calls a person to become a leader, it is not guaranteed that all the projects of leadership will necessarily be satisfactorily fulfilled within the lifetime of the leader, or within the office of the leader. One must be willing to let go when things are not perfectly fulfilled.”[7] We are all limited an in this limitations God fills in. Each of us compliments each other in its limitations.      


Reflection: Article II of Journeys & Servants


[1] Pg. 28
[2] Pg. 29
[3] Pg. 31
[4] Pg. 31
[5] Pg. 31
[6] Pg. 34
[7] Pg. 42-43

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