Grasping the leeks with both hands

...At this time Moses was born; and he was beautiful in God's sight...And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds. Acts 6:20, 22

Well, Stephen’s fly-by summary of the history of God’s dealings with man sure underscores two things, one of which is that God’s plans and timing are not in any way, shape, or form my plans and timing.  Take Moses, for example.  He was one of the big actors in the plan, very clearly marked since infanthood to be someone of heft and importance, and yet he spent forty years fiddling around in the courts of the heathen king before it even “came into his heart,” to visit his oppressed brothers, the Israelites.  Then in about five passion-driven moments he messes everything up, and spends another forty years wandering around the desert in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of sheep.  Mr. Beautiful, mighty in word and deed.

So with hindsight, we might say things like he was being trained in classical leadership and governance and historical perspective and then he got another forty years figuring out how to look at clouds and tell if it was going to rain and where he could possibly find any pasture or springs in the heaps of boulders for his flock, which with hindsight seem like helpful skills, but let me repeat the word “hindsight.”  Hindsight is God sight.  Forwards and backwards and very present, omniscient.  And I am not He.

Which is the other big thing underscored in Stephen’s summary: You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit.  Circumcision is cutting away all the unnecessary excess, all the fleshy stuff.  What I long for with my heart, what “wisdom” I fill my head with.  Again and again, I pull back, resisting the Holy Spirit, no matter how powerfully He reveals His glory.  

He has shown you, O man, what is good;

And what does the Lord require of you

But to do justly,

To love mercy,

And to walk humbly with your God?

Now Moses was very humble--more humble than any other person on earth.  Guess all those eighty years wandering around showed him what is good.  And it seems like he finally paid attention.  Which really, when everything else is sifted out, is the point of it all, noticing what we see.

But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God.