The World's Hardest Job

OK, so, which do you think would be harder, being the guy how led several million Israelites out of Egypt or the wife of the guy who led several million Israelites out of Egypt?  Yep, that’s what I thought too.

Have you ever had to stand back and watch while someone you loved and cared about had to take a risk?  Maybe it’s being in a play, playing basketball, preaching his (or her) first sermon, being elected president of the United States, or being chosen by God to go back to Egypt and chat with Pharaoh.  That’s one of the hardest things in the world, isn’t it?  You’re more nervous than he is, aren’t you?  Butterflies in your stomach, weak knees, profuse sweating, heart palpitations…you’re a nervous wreck.  He, however, looks calm, cool, and collected.  That’s so not fair.

Now, when things go well, the pressure of watching your loved one doing his thing is bearable.  But then things start going badly:  he forgets his lines, misses what would have been the winning basket, gets stuck during his sermon, his approval rating tanks or the Israelites start whining.  That’s when things begin to get uncomfortable; certainly for the person in the thick of the difficulties, but also for the person who has to stand by and take it.  Excruciating, in fact.

Think of Moses and Zipporah.  They had forty pretty easy years together-just the sheep, Zipporah’s sisters and at least one brother, Jethro, and the two boys.  They all seemed to get along pretty well.  When you think about, Moses probably had spent more of his life with these people than he had with his own family (birth or adopted).  He had worked beside these people, eaten with them, laughed and cried with them; Moses knew Zipporah’s family on a really personal basis.  They probably had inside jokes and funny old memories that his own family back in Egypt would not understand.  In many ways, I believe Moses felt more closeness with this family than with his own…to begin with anyway.

But then, God gives Moses a mission and things begin to happen pretty quickly; Moses and his wife and kids head off for Egypt.

Now to be really honest, I don’t get this whole circumcision, husband of blood thing AT ALL!  I do take comfort in finding out that almost nobody else gets it either.  Some people say that the angel was trying to kill Moses’ son, Gershom, that it was Moses who was circumcised, that Zipporah was honoring Moses by putting the blood on his feet, or that she was angry at him for making her do what he should have done.  There’s another whole theory that God was trying to kill Moses because Moses had been reluctant to take on this mission.  I think those are all things we’ll have to ask Moses and Zipporah about when we chat with them in Heaven.  All I think I understand about this episode, is that Zipporah did what she had to do to save her husband’s life, even though she probably wasn’t thrilled about doing it or understand all the why’s and wherefores of it.  She saw what had to be done and she did it.  Wow.

Zipporah doesn’t come into the story again for quite a while.  Again, there are lots of theories.  Some say that Moses divorced her at that point…but then why did she come see him again later?  Mrs. White says that Moses realized that the things he was going to have to do to get through to Pharaoh were going to be too hard on her.  He probably also knew that he couldn’t be distracted from his mission, even by his own family.  Another thing, and this is just me, Moses might have been a little reluctant for his birth family to meet Zipporah, and with good reason, as it turned out.  Whatever the logic was, Zipporah goes back to Midian and Moses heads on to Egypt.  That must have been tough.

When Zipporah and Moses meet up again, Zipporah has to realize pretty quickly that her quiet shepherdess life is completely over.  Now she is traveling the desert with the leader of several million whiney people who wanted Moses’ attention all the time.  They wanted more food, different food, water; they wanted Moses to settle their petty little arguments – all day long, everyday!  Oh for a couple hundred nice quiet sheep!!!

Do you remember how angry you were the first time one of you kids told you that somebody at school didn’t like him (or her)?  Or later, when somebody he was dating broke his heart?  He probably got over it before you did, because he’s interacting, crying, healing, meeting new people, and hopefully studying; while all you have to go on is that one bit of information, that one interaction when he was the most vulnerable.  He can move on much more easily than you can.  Imagine Moses and Zipporah in their tent ready to go to sleep and Moses is decompressing from his day.  Zipporah listens and gets pretty angry and frustrated with these people who are eating up all of her husband’s time.  Moses can get a good night’s sleep and go out and do it all again tomorrow, but Zipporah has time to stew about each slight and complaint.  Thankfully she went and vented to her dad who had some pretty great advice about how to delegate authority so Moses could stick to the important business of getting all these folks to the Promised Land.

You know what’s really great though, is that Moses took the advice.  How many of us would have just brushed Jethro’s advice off?  I mean what did he know?  He’d never led millions of people through the desert.  God hadn’t called him to free the Israelites from slavery.  He was just some small town priest from some backwoods town. Moses knew two things, though.  First, he knew his father-in-law well enough to know he was a smart guy; he’d already learned a lot from him.  And, second, he knew that God was the One who was really in charge; and if He chose to give Moses advice through his father-in-law, he’d be glad to take it.

Moses shows the advantages of having a great support system for somebody who is in a position of authority.  He didn’t ever just set out to do this on his own.  He worked with his own family – Miriam and Aaron.  He worked with his in-laws – Jethro and Hobab (Zipporah’s brother).  He worked with the Israelites by delegating authority over the people.  And probably most importantly, Moses wasn’t a control freak, an easy trap to fall into when a person holds that much authority. 

Another great thing is that Zipporah worked hard to make Moses' life easier not harder.  And isn’t that the best way we can serve each other, by making each other’s lives easier?  “Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”  Galations 6:2 

Zipporah could have whined to Moses that he never paid any attention to her and the boys; that he’d dragged them out into the wilderness without discussing things first; that he cared more about these strangers than he did about her.  When Moses’ brother and sister got ugly about her, she could have jumped into the fight and told them what she thought about them…but as far as we know, she didn’t give into that mentality.  She supported her husband in the mission he had accepted. 

I’d be willing to bet that she didn’t always like the way her life was going, but that didn’t change her mind about her mission—to be a blessing to her family. 

“The wife can be a comfort, a blessing, standing by the side of her husband as his safe counselor, her influence keeping him to the right, to honesty and purity and godliness.”--Letter 41a, 1888, p. 5. (Written at Burrough Valley, Calif., July 7, 1888, to Brothers and Sisters at Fresno.)

“Here is the wife, the queen of the home--the blessing of God can rest upon her that she may be a sunshine, a sunbeam, in the house. Never, never, in any way, speak in a manner that would irritate. The voice is a talent; it is a talent of God. It is to be so cultivated that it will bring peace and harmony and light and love.” {2SAT 271.3}

“Now is the winter of our discontent”

Rachel, Leah and Jacob…probably one of the saddest stories in the Bible, don’t you think?  But I just read a couple of things that helped me think of this story from a completely different direction.  Very interesting!

Typically, each person plays an extremely stereotypical role:  Jacob is the love-blinded hero, just trying to do his best with the cards he’d been dealt; Rachel is the tragic love interest who cries a lot and dies young; and Leah plays the evil step-sister (ala Cinderella) by flaunting her blessings in front of poor Rachel.

But look at the story from the perspective of a gentleman named Richard L. Strauss (not the composer).  He’s a Christian author who has written a book called, Living in Love: Secrets from Bible Marriages, that covers thirteen important couples of the Bible.  Sound familiar?  Anyway, he has an extremely interesting take on the story of Jacob, Rachel and Leah.

(You can find the complete book, along with many of his other books, as well as a bunch of other interesting stuff, for free at bible.org)

To start things off, Mr. Strauss compares Rachel and Jacob’s initial relationship to that of the football hero and homecoming queen—that is, based on physical attraction and not much else.  The only salvation for the relationship at all was the enforced seven year engagement that forced them to get to know each other.  He also includes something that I’ve always felt:  that Leah really loved Jacob and that’s why she went along with Laban’s plan.  Imagine how she must have felt when she heard Jacob yelling at Laban about being tricked.  Ouch!

Now, something I’d never thought of before was that maybe God’s best will for Jacob was to be married to Leah only and that he should have accepted the trick as God’s will. But, Jacob being Jacob, he was going to get what he wanted no matter what it cost anybody.  Hm.  Something to think about.

It is under the stressful situation of a two wife household Strauss believes that Rachel’s true nature begins to show.  So, here’s Rachel who has been the favored daughter, the favored wife, the beauty of the family, wealthy and she tells Jacob, “Give me children or else I die.”  Genesis 30:1  According to Strauss, this is Rachel’s way of saying, if I can’t have what I want, when I want it, I’d rather be dead.  Never mind that Jacob was willing to work fourteen years to be allowed to marry her, she wanted what Leah had—children. 

The spirit of discontent governed Rachel’s life and, probably, made the people around her miserable as well.  Even when Rachel has a son, she names him ‘Joseph’ which means “may he add” and says “May the Lord give me another son.”  Genesis 30:24

“A beggar standing on a street corner commented to his friends, ‘“If only I had a hundred dollars, I would never complain again.’  A businessman walking by over heard his statement and interrupted the conversation.
“’Excuse me,’ the man said.  ‘Did you say if you had a hundred dollars, you would never complain again?’
“The beggar replied, ‘You heard right, mister.’
The man pulled out his wallet, handed him one hundred dollars, and said, ‘I’m glad I can have a small part in bringing happiness to the world.’
After the man walked away, the beggar turned to his friends and remarked, ‘I wish I had asked for two hundred dollars!’”  Kent Crockett, I Once Was Blind But Now I Squint

So, what does it mean to be discontent?  From the dictionary I get this definition:  “a restless desire or craving for something one does not have” and these synonyms: “uneasiness, inquietude, restlessness, and displeasure”.

At the same time, though, we have to be very careful to separate “good” discontent from “bad” discontent.  The “good” kind is what triggers motivation toward change and better things.  But the “bad” kind, well, it’s the basis for every sin, war, murder, or whatever other bad thing you can think of.  For example, why did Lucifer fight with God?  He had become discontent or dissatisfied with his place in the Heavenly hierarchy.   Why did Eve take the fruit?  Why did Cain kill Abel?  Why did Hitler invade Poland?

Guy R. Finnie classifies discontent as “carnal” and “spiritual”.  He defines “carnal discontent” as a person who is completely involve in himself (or herself).  This kind of discontent grows out of covetousness, craving what someone else has, even if what we have ourselves is actually better.

Satan has made sure that society today is built almost exclusively on creating discontentment.  What else is advertising?  If the advertiser shows us enough times that we can’t be happy if we don’t use a particular brand of some product, then we begin to believe that the advertiser is right.

Look at some of the books we read and the movies and shows we watch.  A lot of them center around beautiful men and women with lots of money falling in love, never doing housework, not needing a job, and living happily ever after.  If we look at that kind of life enough, even though it’s imaginary, it can make our lives seem pretty drab and unhappy.  We become discontented with the way we’re living.  As a consequence, we overspend, we hate our jobs, our marriages end, and we want maids to do the housework.  In fact, we become very, very unhappy with what God has given us.  We start thinking more about ourselves and how to get happier, and that’s just not the way Jesus wants us to live.  “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you.”  Hebrews 13:5

Read this fable by Jackie McCune:

The Silver Shoes

Once, before this, in the Town of Discontent, lived a little boy named Saad.  Now Discontent was not always the name of the town; it was once known as Pleasant.  It was an unusual town because everyone who lived there always wore silver shoes.  You see, there was a shoemaker in Pleasant who made silver shoes for everyone and all he ever charged was a smile.The silver shoes were unusual because they never wore out.  Another unusual thing about them was that they were always the right size no matter how big the people’s feet were.  Whenever a new baby was born in Pleasant the parents would take the baby to the shoemaker and he would make a pair of beautiful silver shoes.  Somehow, as the baby grew, so did the shoes.But one day, another shoemaker came to Pleasant.  He opened his shop right next door to the maker of the silver shoes.“Come and try on MY beautiful shoes, he called to the people as they walked by his shop.  “They are gold and they have jewels that glisten like all the colors of the rainbow.”The people of Pleasant thought the shoes were indeed very beautiful.  Why, some pairs even had three or four jewels on each shoe!  Everyone rushed into the new shoe shop to buy shoes, but when they smiled at the new shoemaker and started to leave, he said, “That will be $10.00 please.”“The old shoemaker only charges a smile,” they said.“But his shoes all look alike,” the new shoemaker said.  “That’s true,” the people would say, and then they would pay the $10.00, take their shoes and rush home to try them on.Now when Saad was born, the town was still called the Town of Pleasant and Saad was named Happy.  True to his name, he was a happy little boy.“Lets take him to the NEW shoemaker,” said his mother.  “I like all the pretty jewels he puts on the shoes he makes; see how mine sparkle?”“Ten dollars is a lot of money,” said his father.  “But if that’s what you want, we will get them for Happy.”They took Happy to the new shoe shop and he was fitted with a beautiful pair of gold shoes with red and blue jewels.  But a few months later they were too tight and Happy began to cry because his shoes hurt his feet.“I don’t have $10.00 to buy another pair right now,” said his father.“But he must have shoes,” cried his mother.His father thought for a moment, “Well, we do have the money we saved for his new bed.  We could use some of that.”So back they went to the new shoe shop.  But when another few months had gone by, the second pair of shoes was too small, and Happy was not happy, because his feet were hurting again.“We must go back to the old shoemaker,” said his father.When they came to the place where the old shoemaker had been, the shop was empty.“Oh!” exclaimed his mother, “What will we do?”“There is nothing we can do,” answered his father.  “We have no money to buy from the new shoemaker and now the old shoemaker is gone.  Our son will have to be without shoes; and so shall we, for our shoes are wearing thin and it will not be long before we will have to throw them away.All the other families in Pleasant found themselves with the same problem for they too had been attracted by the sparkling shoes and, because no one came for the silver shoes anymore, the old shoemaker had moved on to another town.And so it was that the Town of Pleasant became the Town of Discontent and Happy became Saad.

And then there’s this to think about:

“There should be less anxiety for external appearances, but more earnest effort to secure practical comfort in every room throughout the house. … more time devoted to the training of the children, to the preparation of simple, wholesome food, and to the general economy and comfort of the household, would make happy hearts and pleasant faces in the home. … There should be less display of superficial politeness and affection toward strangers and visitors, and more of the courtesy that springs from genuine love and sympathy toward the dear ones of our own firesides.
 “…But it is so flattering to the pride of some persons to exhibit a certain extravagant and fashionable style of living for the benefit of occasional guests, that they are willing to sacrifice the peace and comfort of the household for this empty gratification. … They have no connection with the real joys of life; they interfere with domestic quiet, and unfit the mind for the homely but pleasant duties of practical life.“…Decorations of dress and houses do not make people happy; but the lowliest dwelling may be beautified, and the poorest family be made rich, by the possession of meekness, kindness and love. Pleasant voices, gentle manners, and sincere affection that finds expression in all the actions, together with industry, neatness, and economy, make even a hovel the happiest of homes. The Creator regards such a home with approbation; and the inmates, though they have not "that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, and of putting on of apparel," have that which is far better.-- "the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.""’Godliness with contentment is great gain.’ It is ‘profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.’ We should open our hearts and houses to the Lord. …It refines the taste, sanctifies the judgment, and brings peace of mind, and in the end, everlasting life. {ST, October 2, 1884}