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The Ministry of Health and Healing
fully prepared for the work of delivering Israel from bondage. But
God judged otherwise. His providence appointed Moses forty years
of training in the wilderness as a keeper of sheep.
The education that Moses had received in Egypt was a help to
him in many respects, but the most valuable preparation for his
lifework was that which he received while employed as a shepherd.
Moses was naturally of an impetuous spirit. In Egypt, as a successful
military leader and favorite with the king and the nation, he had been
accustomed to receiving praise and flattery. He had attracted the
people to himself. He hoped to accomplish by his own powers the
work of delivering Israel.
Far different were the lessons he had to learn as God’s represen-
tative. As he led his flocks through the wilds of the mountains and
into the green pastures of the valleys, he learned faith and meekness,
patience, humility, and self-forgetfulness. He learned to care for the
weak, to nurse the sick, to seek after the straying, to bear with the
unruly, to tend the lambs, and to nurture the old and feeble.
In this work Moses was drawn nearer to the Chief Shepherd. He
became closely united to the Holy One of Israel. No longer did he
plan to do a great work. He sought to do faithfully as unto God the
work committed to his charge. He recognized the presence of God
in his surroundings. All nature spoke to him of the Unseen One. He
knew God as a personal God, and in meditating upon His character
he grasped more and more fully the sense of His presence. He found
refuge in the everlasting arms.
After this experience Moses heard the call from heaven to ex-
change his shepherd’s staff for the rod of authority, to leave his flock
of sheep and take the leadership of Israel. The divine command
found him selfdistrustful, slow of speech, and timid. He was over-
whelmed with a sense of being incapable of being a mouthpiece
for God. But he accepted the work, putting his whole trust in the
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Lord. The greatness of his mission called into exercise the best pow-
ers of his mind. God blessed his ready obedience, and he became
eloquent, hopeful, self-possessed, fitted for the greatest work ever
given to man. Of him it is written: “Since then there has not arisen
in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.”
Deuteronomy 34:10
.