You think you’re stressed? Moses is stressed. What a stressful situation to be in – an angry mob you have been leading wanting to undermine you on one side, an all-powerful God you have been trying to obey wanting to vindicate you on the other. At this point I don’t know anymore what is going on in Moses’ head.
Maybe that is what leadership is. Servant Leadership. In obedience to your Master and Maker, you bring man – in good times or bad times – from death to life.
There are strategies and techniques for effective leadership, but when push comes to shove, the real leader is the one who actually does the hard work and perseveres. When all around him is failing and falling away, he stays true to his Mission. He stays close, even closer, to his Master.
The question is why. I can understand the God of great and immeasurable love doing something like this. But a man of finite mind, finite love, finite life? I can understand man doing it for his family, the close circle of the people he loves. But for a disrespectful, thankless, angry mob? How?
The only reason is if, when, the finite man is transformed by the infinite God. That is the only way – he knows some things we don’t know, he understands and sees much more than we do, he is given power relative to the responsibility.
This power is not to be demanded, like how Korah rebelled, it is given to those chosen by God’s infinite wisdom and grace.