Have you ever considered how our painful experiences in life can become so engrained as part of our identities that frequently, it can be very difficult to move past them?
That notion struck me this morning while reading about old Moses. I will get to him in a bit.
Down at the bottom of Florida, in the vicinity of Homestead, there is a castle made entirely of coral. In fact it’s called The Coral Castle!
It’s been featured on The Discovery Channel and The History Channel as well. So, several years ago, I just had to see it for myself.
The story goes that a Latvian immigrant by the name of Edward Leedskainin got jilted by his fiancé whose name was Agnes Scuffs. And, Ed went a little crazy.
For the next twenty-eight years, Ed cut coral and fabricated an immense castle out of it all by himself as a monument to his one and only true love. Agnes must have been a humdinger!
The pain of being dumped became such a huge part of Ed’s identity that his life froze in place. And, every single day for twenty-eight years he poured all he had into this shrine.
I suppose the least we could say about old Ed was that he channeled his hurt into something constructive. And, how in the world a man five feet tall moved 1,100 tons of coral without any modern equipment is a total mystery to everyone!
If you want to check out Ed’s creation, here is a link:
http://coralcastle.com/gallery/gallery-b-2/
Ed just could not move past his hurt. It is a sad and lonely story.
Now back to old Moses. There is an odd joke that runs around saying that Moses was a basket case (but unlike Ed, Moses moved past it).
Check out what the writer of Hebrews had to say:
By faith, Moses, when grown, refused the privileges of the Egyptian royal house. He chose a hard life with God’s people rather than an opportunistic soft life of sin with the oppressors. He valued suffering in the Messiah’s camp far greater than Egyptian wealth because he was looking ahead, anticipating the payoff. By an act of faith, he turned his heel on Egypt, indifferent to the king’s blind rage. He had his eye on the One no eye can see, and kept right on going. By an act of faith, he kept the Passover Feast and sprinkled Passover blood on each house so that the destroyer of the firstborn wouldn’t touch them (Hebrews 11:24-27 MSG).
Moses could have chosen to remain a basket case. He could have chosen to live a life of privilege.
Moses could also have chosen to remain indifferent to the suffering of the Israelites. But by faith Moses looked ahead to the LORD and realized there would be a far greater payoff in the end.
By faith, Moses saw the invisible and kept his eye on the One no eye can see.
I have known people who have made a market out of their hurt. Their hurt became their lifelong business.
I hope that guy is not me! But, some days…
Sometimes, we can feel so beat up that the hurt can begin to interfere with our forward progress.
Today may be a good day to take comfort in the God of Moses. This God of Moses has been around for an awfully long time.
Moses chose not to remain a basket case. Christ issues that same invitation to everyone.
Jesus said to them, “Come with me. I’ll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I’ll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass.” They didn’t ask questions, but simply dropped their nets and followed (Matthew 4:19-20 MSG).”