God began doing a good work in you, and I am
sure he will continue it until it is finished when Jesus Christ comes again.
(Philippians 1:6).
The hallway is eerily
silent except for the squeaky wheels of the mop bucket and the shuffling of the
old man’s feet. Both sound tired, and both know these floors. “How many nights
have I cleaned these floors,” Rick mumbles. He’s always careful to get in the corners,
though. Always careful to set up his yellow caution sign warning of the wet
floors – even though no one’s around. Always chuckling. “Be careful everyone,” he
says to no one in particular. It’s 3:00 a.m.
Rick’s health
isn’t what it used to be. Acid reflux keeps him awake, and rheumatoid arthritis
makes him limp. His hair’s falling out of his head at the same rate as other
hair is sprouting up in places where hair shouldn’t be growing. His glasses are
so thick his eyeballs look twice their size. But he does his work. Slopping
soapy water on the pristine travertine tile. Scrubbing the heel marks left by
the well-heeled lawyers of Bicker, Back & Forth.
And he’ll be
finished long before quitting time. He always finishes early – has for twenty
years. And when he’s finished, he’ll put away his mop and bucket and take a
seat outside the office of the senior partner and wait. Never leaves early. Oh,
he could alright – no one would ever know. But he doesn’t. He broke the rules
once. Never again. And sometimes, if the door’s open, he’ll enter the partner’s
palatial office. But not for long; just to look. The office suite is larger
than his entire apartment. He runs his finger over the desk, and strokes the
soft leather couch. He stands at the window and watches as the gray sky turns to
gold. And he remembers: he had an office like that once.
But that was back
in the day. Back when Rick was Richard. Back when this custodian was an
executive. Back when …. Well, it seems centuries ago now. Long before the night
shift. Long before the mop bucket. Long before the janitor’s uniform. Long before
the scandal. But Rick doesn’t think about it much anymore. No reason to, really.
He got into trouble, got fired and got out. That’s it. Not many people know
about it. It’s better that way. There’s no need to tell them. It’s just his little
secret. Rick’s story, by the way, is true. The names and a detail or two have
been changed to protect the innocent. He’s in a different job in a different
century. But the story is factual. But more than a true story, it’s a common
story. It’s a story of a derailed dream. It’s a story of high hopes colliding
with harsh realities. It happens to all us dreamers.
In Rick’s case,
it was a mistake he’d never forget. A grave mistake. A capital offense kind of
mistake. You see, Rick killed someone. He saw a thug beating up on an innocent
man, and Rick lost control. He killed the mugger. And when word got out, Rick got
out. Rick would rather hide than go to jail. So he ran. And in the process, the
executive became a fugitive. True story. Granted, most stories aren’t quite as
extreme as Rick’s. Few spend their lives running from the law. But many of us live
with regrets. For instance, I met a young man on the fourth tee several years ago.
“I could have gone to college on a golf scholarship,” he said. “Really?” I asked.
“Yeah, had an offer right out of school. But I decided to join a grunge band,
instead. Ended up never going college. Now I’m stuck fixing garage doors.”
“Now I’m stuck.”
Now, there’s an epitaph. An epitaph of a derailed dream. Pick up a high school
yearbook and read the “What are you going to do after you graduate?” section. Chances
are you’ll get dizzy breathing the thin air of mountaintop visions: “I’m going
to an Ivy league school,” one says. “Write books and live in Switzerland,” says
another “I’m going to be a doctor in a third world country,” she writes. “Teach
inner-city kids,” he said. But, take that same yearbook to your 20th
reunion and see the next chapter. Some dreams have come true, but many haven’t.
Not that all of them should, mind you. For instance, I hope the little guy who
dreamed of playing professional basketball came to his senses. But then again, I
hope he didn’t lose his passion in the process. You see, changing direction in
life is not tragic. Losing your passion is.
It seems like something
happens to us along the way. Convictions to change the world morph into
commitments to pay the bills. Rather than making a difference, we make a living.
Instead of looking forward, we look backward. Rather than looking outward, we
look inward. And sometimes we don’t like what we see. Rick didn’t. Rick saw a
man who’d settled for mediocrity. Educated in the finest institutions in the world,
and now working the night shift at a minimum-wage job so he wouldn’t be seen during
the day. But all that changed when he heard the voice.
At first he
thought the voice was a joke. Some of the fellows on the third floor play those
kinds of tricks every once in awhile. “Richard, Richard,” the voice called.
Rick turned. No one called him Richard anymore. “Richard, Richard.” He turned
toward the pail and it was glowing. Bright red. Hot red. He could feel the heat
ten feet away. He stepped closer and looked in, but the water wasn’t boiling. “That’s
strange,” Rick mumbled to himself as he took another step to get a closer look.
But then the voice stopped him. “Don’t come any closer, Richard. Take your
shoes off. You’re on holy tile.” Suddenly, Rick knew exactly who was speaking.
“Yes, Lord,” he said. Okay, God speaking from a hot mop bucket to a janitor
named Rick? Really? Alright, but would it be more believable if I said God was
speaking from a burning bush to a goat roper named Moses?
“One day Moses
was taking care of Jethro’s flock.
(Jethro was the priest of Midian and also Moses’ father-in-law.) When Moses led the flock to the west side of
the desert, he came to Sinai, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord
appeared to him in flames of fire coming out of a bush. Moses saw that the bush
was on fire, but it was not burning up. So he said, ‘I will go closer to this
strange thing. How can a bush continue
burning without burning up?’ When the Lord saw Moses was coming to look at the
bush, God called to him from the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And Moses said, ‘Here I
am.’ Then God said, ‘Do not come any closer.
Take off your sandals, because you are standing on holy ground. I am the God of your ancestors – the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ The Lord said … ‘I have heard
the cries of the people of Israel, and I have seen the way the Egyptians have
made life hard for them. So now I am
sending you to the king of Egypt.
Go! Bring my people, the Israelites,
out of Egypt!’” (Exodus 3:1-6, 9-10)
Maybe the Moses
story is easier to handle because we’ve heard it before. But just because it’s
Moses and a bush, rather than Rick and a bucket, it’s no less spectacular, is
it? It shocked the sandals off of Moses. And we wonder what amazed the old guy more:
that God spoke in a bush, or that God spoke at all because Moses, like Rick,
had made a mistake. A BIG mistake.
You remember the
story, don’t you? He was adopted nobility. An Israelite reared in an Egyptian
palace. His countrymen were slaves, but Moses was privileged. He ate at the
royal table. He was educated in the finest schools. Funny thing is that his
most influential teacher had no degree at all. She was his mother – a Jewess
hired to be his nanny. “Moses,” you can almost hear her whisper to her young
son. “God has put you here for a reason. Someday, you’ll set our people free.
Never forget, my son. Never forget.” And Moses didn’t. The flame of justice
grew hotter until it blazed. Moses saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave. And
just like Rick killed the mugger, Moses killed the Egyptian and then buried him.
The next day Moses saw the slave. Now, you’d think he would have said, “Thanks.”
But he didn’t. Rather than gratitude, he was angry. “Are you going to kill me,
too?” he asked. And Moses knew right then that he was in trouble. So, he fled
Egypt and hid in the wilderness. Call it a career change. He went from dining
with heads of state to counting the heads of sheep.
Now, Moses
thought the move was permanent – there’s no indication he ever intended to go
back to Egypt. In fact, there is every indication he wanted to stay with the sheep.
Standing barefoot before the bush, he confessed, “I am not a great man! How can
I go to the king and lead the Israelites out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11). And I’m
glad Moses asked that question. It’s a pretty good one, I think. Yeah, why
Moses? Better yet, why eighty-year-old Moses? The forty-year-old version was way
more appealing. The Moses we saw in Egypt was brash and confident. But the
Moses we find some four decades later is reluctant and weather-beaten. Had you
or I looked at Moses back in Egypt, we would’ve said, “This guy’s ready to
rumble.” Trained by the ablest soldiers. Instant access to the inner circle of
the Pharaoh. Moses spoke their language and knew their habits. He was the
perfect man for the job.
The Moses at
forty we like. But the Moses at eighty? Not much. He’s too old. He’s too tired.
He smells like a shepherd. He speaks like a foreigner. What impact could Moses possibly
have on Pharaoh? He’s the wrong guy for the job. And even Moses would have
agreed. “Tried that once before,” he’d say. “Those people don’t want to be
helped. Just leave me here to tend my sheep, God. They’re a whole lot easier to
lead.” Yep, Moses wouldn’t have gone. And you wouldn’t have sent him, right? I
know I wouldn’t have sent him. But God did. Go figure. Benched at forty and
suited up at eighty. Why? What does he know now that he didn’t know then? What
did he learn in the desert that he didn’t learn in Egypt?
Well, the ways
of the desert, for one. Forty-year-old Moses was a city boy. Octogenarian Moses
knows the name of every snake, and the location of every watering hole. If he’s
going to lead thousands, perhaps millions, of Hebrews away from Egypt and into
the wilderness, he’d better know the basics of Desert Life 101. And family
dynamics, for another. I mean, if he’s going to be traveling with hundreds or
thousands of families for forty years, it might help just a little bit to
understand how families work, don’t you think? And by this time, he’s been married
a long time to a woman of faith, the daughter of a Midianite priest, and has
kids of his own.
But more than
the ways of the desert and the people, Moses needed to learn something about
himself. And apparently he’d learned it because God said that Moses was ready. And
to convince him, God spoke to him through a bush. (God had to do something drastic
to get his attention) ”School’s out,” God told him. “Now, get to work.” Poor
Moses. He didn’t even know he was enrolled, much less a graduate.
But he was. And,
guess what? So are we. The voice from the bush is the voice that whispers to each
of us. It reminds us that God’s not finished with us yet. Oh, we may think he
is. We may think we’ve peaked out. We may think he’s got someone else to do the
job. But if we’re thinking that, we need to think again because we’re all
unfinished. “God began doing a good work in you, and I am sure he will continue
it until it is finished when Jesus Christ comes again.” (Philippians 1:6) Do you
see what God is doing? He’s doing a good work in you. (Present tense) And do you
see when he’ll be finished? When Jesus comes again. (Future tense) In other
words, we’re all unfinished.
Your Father
wants you to know that you’re a work in progress. Your present hasn’t met your
ultimate future. And to convince you, he may just surprise you. He works that
way, you know. He may speak through a bush. He could even speak through a
bucket. The question is, are you listening?
Grace,
Randy
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