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The Wooly Wilderness

For someone who hates change, it seems to be sticking to my life like white fuzz on my favorite black pants. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dressed in a rush and slipped into the car only to discover white speckles on my dark color slacks. I keep a lint roller stashed in a side compartment for such occasions, but it never seems to completely eliminate the fuzzy effects.

For someone who hates change, it seems to be sticking to my life like white fuzz on my favorite black pants. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dressed in a rush and slipped into the car only to discover white speckles on my dark color slacks. I keep a lint roller stashed in a side compartment for such occasions, but it never seems to completely eliminate the fuzzy effects.

Change too seems to come in splotches. And recently I’ve hit a rough spot. I’m a newlywed. Throw in a career change, a move, church transition, a few health issues, and it’s enough to overwhelm any lint roller. Yet wiser women tell me, this is only the beginning. All of life is change, and I have trouble accepting that one.

So I’ve been spending time with Moses lately. He seemed to know a lot about change and personal confusion. His mom raised him Hebrew, but pharaoh’s daughter named him. He was the prince of a world power until he murdered a man. Then he fled the country where Zipporah and her sisters mistook him for an Egyptian (Exodus 2:16–22).

For the next 40 years, the confused leader settled into an undistinguished existence— content to live with the priest of Midian, marry his daughter, and keep his sheep. The wilderness became his new homeland replete with tempestuous dunes and wooly bleats. 

So it seems like chance when Moses ventured to Horeb for pasture. But already we know this mountain towered with extreme significance. I can’t help but wonder if he knew the stories—the angel of the Lord appeared to Haggar twice, and he spared Isaac from sacrifice (Genesis 16:13–17; 21:17; 22:11–18). This place was flocked with sovereign encounters.

Once again the angel of Yahweh visited this site, arousing the curiosity of an oblivious shepherd. Moses ventured to the unconsumed bush, and there God called the forgotten leader by name (Exodus 3:4).

It’s a curious perspective on calling. So often in the midst of change, I plead with God for signs and directions. I want the specifications of my calling before I get started, much like Moses asked of God just a few verses later (Exodus 3:10–4:17).

Yet it seems that throughout the scriptures God calls the contented—those who are satisfied with ordinariness. And it’s these to whom God whispers, slipping into their routines, arousing their curiosities, calling them in unusual ways.

Perhaps I’ve had this whole calling thing backwards. Instead of pursuing a calling, maybe I should stop resisting change, trying to roll it away like pesky lint. Instead I choose contentment believing God has a purpose for all my unplanned lint. Calling is God’s work. And he’ll likely let us know it in parts as we walk with him.  

So this morning as I dress, I’ll still reach for my lint roller. But it’s a good reminder that God does his best work with frail figures in the wooly wilderness.

Amanda DeWitt is a freelance writer, coach's wife, and mom. She completed her bachelor’s at Dallas Baptist University and holds a M.A. in media and communication from Dallas Theological Seminary. When she's not typing away at her computer, she's chasing her two little boys or watching her husband coach high school football.