Personal Ministry to a Christian Faith

Personal Ministry of Steve Kellar

The Back Side of the Desert

Trials and Pain

The devil, things and people being what they are, it is necessary for God to use the hammer, the file and the furnace in His holy work of preparing a saint for true sainthood. It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.

The Root of the Righteous, 157.
________________________________________

Trials and Pain: The Back Side of the Desert

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the
priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert,
and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
–Exodus 3:1

We should quickly review here the kinds of preparation Moses had
gone through for his leadership role under God. Reared in
Pharaoh’s palace, he had been educated in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians. He had the prerequisites for almost any kind of
career. In our day a man with his qualifications would be sought
for election as a bishop or the president of any of the great
church denominations.

Then, too, Moses had a most unusual but highly effective
postgraduate course. God took him out of the activity and the
noise of Egypt and placed him in the silence of the open spaces.
He kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law. Tending the
sheep, he learned lessons of meditation and observation that he
could only have learned in the silence.

Probably more important than anything else, Moses learned to know
himself. That knowledge was a part of God’s preparation of the
man for his future tasks. We, today, know everything but
ourselves. We never really come to know ourselves because we
cannot get quiet enough.
Men Who Met God, p. 70

“Lord, I pray this morning for the hurting pastor who is
languishing in ‘the silence of the open spaces,’ on the back side
of the desert. Encourage him; instruct him; then show Him how You
can use him mightily in Your way and in Your time. Amen.”

On this day…

Leave a Reply