It is significant that Moses, tending the sheep of Jethro, priest of Midian and who was his father-in law, had to cross a vast desert to reach the grassy slopes of Mt. Horab, the Mountain of God. It was a dry, hot and lonely desert that he crossed with scarce water and less grazing areas for his sheep, but he had behind him forty years of experience as a shepherd.

In the greatest stretch of his imagination, Moses could not have conceived of the marvels that were in store for him on that Mountain of God. His only thought or plan was for better grazing for his sheep. Yet, he was to meet God and hear his voice through an angel in a burning bush. His life was to be completely changed at age eighty. He was about to embark on a mission filled with power, humiliation, miracles and achievements beyond the stretch of anyone's imagination. His accomplishments as Prince of Egypt, which he had surrendered, could not begin to compare with the many experiences ahead of him.

Moses could not visualize himself in the role of savior of his people who were slaves in Egypt. After all, he fled Egypt in disgrace, as a prince who had betrayed his adopted mother and grandfather by killing an Egyptian official. Jethro furnished him refuge in Midian and even let him marry his daughter. In his first forty years in Egypt Moses had done enough to earn his retirement, and forty more years as a shepherd in Midian may have seemed to him like retirement, but God was preparing him for something greater.

Retirement is a human concept that God has seldom recognized. His thought of retirement includes death and bringing his children home to heaven. How many times have we witnessed a man or woman taking their retirement from work and then ill health takes over their lives. Some people are just getting on cruise-control in their life work when they are asked to retire. Some American Indian tribes required their aging people to go off to a cave in the mountains to die.

We are now living in an age in which seniors at sixty or seventy are approaching the slopes of Mt. Horab. Their children are grown and married and, like Moses, they are ready to relax and take life easy. But if this is your case, don't be surprised if a bush starts burning in your life.

Our next inspiration will also come from Mt. Horab. I suggest that in the meantime you read Exodus chapter 3.