When Reconciliation is Rejected

“But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’” Acts 7:27-28

This is a test. For the next sixty seconds, this station will conduct a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is only a test.

Most of us dislike random interruptions. We’d rather stay tuned to our preferred radio or television broadcasts than pay attention to unwelcome public service announcements.

Moses probably felt like the producers of these PSAs. Needed but unwelcome; appointed by God to reconcile but unappreciated; ready to deliver but rejected. Moses was sent to deliver a public service, but he was rejected by his brothers and by the Egyptians. In Acts 7, Stephen points out that by rejecting Moses, the people were rejecting God. “Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, ‘Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?’” (Acts 7:25-26).

In order for reconciliation to occur, Moses needed a divine perspective. Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in word and deed. Moved with compassion for his brothers and in anger, he killed an Egyptian. But his efforts were not enough to deliver His people. He needed to learn what J. Hudson Taylor once said, “God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.”

Moses supposed that God would approve and that his brothers would understand his motives. But Moses was in for a rude awakening. The people also needed a divine perspective for reconciliation to occur. Moses thought they would recall the struggle of his birth and his fight for survival when Pharaoh ordered Hebrew boys to be killed, but they did not. He supposed they would remember their own cries to God, but they forgot. Now at forty years of age, he was certain the time was right to visit his brothers and serve them as a deliverer, but they did not receive him.

When people judge your methods, it hurts. When they misunderstand your motives, it hurts. When they reject your attempts to reconcile, that hurts too.

Walter Harvey

PONDER: What misunderstood motive or method is hindering your efforts to reconcile?

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Peace and Reconciliation Prayer

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is discord, vision.

Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Source unkown (Attributed to Francis of Assisi, 1181-1226) From The Complete Book of Christian Prayer

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