Acts 7:23-29. Stephen continues with Moses' story: When Moses was forty years old, after learning of his ancestry, he decided to visit the Jewish people. When he saw a Jew being mistreated by an Egyptian, he avenged the Jew by killing the Egyptian. "He supposed that his brethren understood that God was giving them deliverance by his hand, but they did not understand." When Moses found the Jews quarreling among themselves the next day, and would have reconciled them, the man in the wrong asked who appointed Moses their judge and was Moses going to kill him as he did the Egyptian? At this Moses fled Egypt and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he married and had two sons.

How often do I, like Moses, suppose that people, especially my brethren, understand what I am doing and thinking when they do not?! This is the cause of so much of my suffering! I expect people, especially people who know me, to give me the benefit of the doubt; to understand that I am seeking the truth and trying to help them seek it, too, but, like Moses, I am often met with rejection and accusations of being judgmental.

This reached a head during COVID, so I have retreated to my own Midian, where I am building my life with my immediate family and people who understand me. I continue to love those who do not want my help, and who do not want to hear what I have to say, and I continue to want to help them, to tell them the truth. It may be that one day, like Moses, I will be called back to them when the time is right. Until then, I have to mind my own business!