Since I was a little girl I’ve been intrigued by the country of Egypt . . . that exotic seat of civilization. As an art major in college, Egyptology fascinated me. I’ve always been curious about Egyptian ruins, mummies, temples, museums, artifacts, and most especially, that long, life-giving thread that cuts the country in half—the Nile River. Even the Sahara Desert held a certain amount of intrigue. (Read more here)

For decades I read everything I could find on Egypt and pondered its mysteries. The hieroglyphics, with all their formidable intricacies and intrigue, were like magnets, inviting me to analyze what was written and why. It’s been said this language is the most difficult ever put into writing . . . beautiful to look at but almost impossible to read. It uses pictographs, which are highly stylized symbols, representing complex ideas. Nevertheless, I was curious about the messages they conveyed.

In December 2005, I had an opportunity to travel to Egypt and see firsthand what all these books had been talking about. Suddenly, that vast land lay before me. I was mesmerized. I walked at the base of the pyramids . . . the same place where others had walked five thousand years before the birth of Christ. I floated up the Nile on a riverboat . . . the same river where Moses was hidden as a baby from the murderous designs of the Egyptian king. I went into tombs, some of which still held the remains of pharaohs and kings of that land. I saw statuaries and temples that represented centuries of architecture and design I had studied as a college student.

It was as though I went back into a time tunnel.

Into this ancient scene, Moses was born. Picture it in your mind. He was raised by the daughter of Pharaoh and lived as a child of great wealth. He was taught by Egyptian tutors in every imaginable field—science, medicine, philosophy, law, the arts, and hieroglyphics. Acts 7:22 tells us, “Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” (NIV). He likely attended school at the Temple of the Sun, which would be like Oxford today. Moses was intelligent, diligent, influential, bold, and courageous. The pride of Egypt, he was the next heir to the throne of Pharaoh. But note what Hebrews 11:24–27 says:

How could Moses do that? What was inside Moses that enabled him to see “him who is invisible”? Why did he prefer disgrace more than all those priceless treasures? What was the reward ahead to which he looked forward?

I believe the collective answer to all those questions is infinite grace. God put into the heart of Moses the realization that there was something much better ahead of him. He didn’t know what it was, but by faith he trusted God to show him when the time came . . . and he wanted to be prepared.

In Acts 7:20–29, we learn that when Moses was about the age of forty, he could no longer sit back and tolerate the inhumane treatment happening to his fellow Jews, who were being beaten under the lash of their taskmasters. At this time, verse 23 tells us, “it entered his mind” to visit his fellow Israelites. Moses saw them. He went to their defense. He rescued them. And in verse 25, we discover that Moses “supposed that his brethren understood that God was granting them deliverance through him.”

Moses had an infinite calling. Somehow, and in some unrevealed way, Moses understood he would be the deliverer of the nation of Israel, even though that had not been revealed to anyone else. Although he acted rashly when he murdered the Egyptian and then fled Egypt, he was convinced that God had called him to that extraordinary role of deliverer way back then—not just when he stood before the burning bush at the age of eighty (Acts 7:30). It took that additional forty years for Moses to learn God’s way of doing things: It’s “not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit” (Zechariah 4:6 NIV) that God’s work gets done. In the hard places of Moses’ life, God kept his word because of his amazing, unfathomable, infinite grace.

At every turn, Moses experienced God’s grace. He was reared in royalty so that he received the necessary schooling in preparation for service. That’s grace. He was humbled by suffering so that he learned to stop taking measures into his own hands. That’s grace. He was empowered by God so that he recognized his leadership abilities came from an almighty source. That’s grace.

In all things . . . grace.

Look at our own culture. The resemblance to the time of Moses is obvious. We’re surrounded by everything money can buy, but when we get it, we want something different. We don’t know what, but what we have doesn’t satisfy. We feel a calling inside that’s bigger than ourselves. It’s an invisible force on the horizon, pulling us toward it. What is that? It’s God. He calls us to a life of grace with him. And one of the beauties of the life he offers is that it’s not by might nor by power that things get done. It’s by trusting his Spirit to work through us.

I’m just five years shy of the age of Moses when he stood at the burning bush and heard the voice of God saying, “So get yourself ready; I’m sending you” (Acts 7:34 MSG). While I know I’m certainly not Moses and this is not ancient Egypt, God has made our hearts alike and he has a purpose for everyone who knows him. By his unfathomable grace, I’ll continue on this path as life unfolds.