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
Reflection: Article II of Journeys & Servants
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