What to do if as a leader you feel called to liberate a nation that is under the oppression of a current empire? You probably want to take it easy. Just forget about the call per se and go out and get married, have a family and live a normal life. Just do the things you do with excellence and try to meet God in his own place (Exodus 2:15). Moses confronted with this dilemma run out of Egypt and went into the land of Midian probably looking for his ancestors and also looking for the God of his ancestors (Exodus 3:1). It is in Horeb, in God’s mountain where he met God and received his commission to go back to Egypt and rescue God’s people, his people.

The first priority of the leader is to encounter God. It is God who knows when people are ready, in this particular case; it was both Israel and Egypt that needed to be ready. When Moses tries the first time neither were ready. Israel was oppressed but not to the point of asking for God’s help, and Egypt was also not ready for the Lord to intervene on them.  Effective leadership is not based on need, it is based on call. The need was there and Moses saw it but if he were to persist in leading based solely on the need he saw, he probably would just get kill. Instead he undergoes transformation. This is actually harder to do. Sometimes it is easier to transform reality so it conforms to our views and satisfactions. It is much harder to be willing and able to transform ourselves in order to see reality from different vantage points.

Because effective leadership is based on call, the main outcome is not what the leader can do or what he or she can accomplish. The main outcome is what the leader becomes in the process of taking on the call and fulfilling his or her mandate. In the case of Moses, whoever edited that last words in the book of Deuteronomy “Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face” (34:10). Then the text ponder over the mighty deeds that Moses performed before Egypt and Israel. By knowing the God of his ancestors Moses knew what his God could do through him if he be willing to obey and follow His direction. There is of course a big difference between knowing God “face to face” and thinking that one knows God. One such example we can see in the high priest Caiaphas who being in the place of Moses and standing in front of the Lord and thinking of himself as on the Lord’s side ended up as his chief enemy. “The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death” (Matthew 26:59). Jesus answers to them in Luke  “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? Everyday I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour – when darkness reigns” (Luke 22:52-53). I myself tremble when I compare these passages. I have thought in the past, oh I am so busy working for God! Without thinking, yes but so were Caiaphas and the leaders of the people, as the Lord put it “at their hour”. Concerning Moses Maimonides said that he was the greatest of all prophets because all of them prophesied by dreams or visions while Moses did it while awake and conscious standing in God’s presence.

I do not know what your call or your challenges are but I do know that your first priority is to go to God and to be acquainted with Him; let him call you and let him send you. Let his power work through you. He can do through you as he did with Moses. Call on the name of Jesus and let him whisper in your heart “follow me”. Then let him empower and send you.