Living Covenant

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Welcome to the Living Covenant Podcast, where we journey through the messy human stories of the Old Testament explore what it means to live in covenant with a promise keeping God. I'm your host, Zanita. Let's dive in.

 Hello everybody i'm here today with Olivia Fairfax.

Hi everyone.

Olivia, you wrote for us on Moses, which I've heard many positive comments about. But before we get into Moses, I would love to start by hearing a little bit about you. Can you tell us who you are, what you do, what you're passionate about?

Yeah. I've been working at Adventist Media for about four years now, but I studied in psychology and law and so, when I, when I first decided what to study. I spent a lot of time in prayer and wasn't sure about what to do, and I kept feeling like God was calling me to law. As much as I personally hated it at the time. It gave me an understanding for the law of God from a different perspective. I guess that's something that I'm passionate about. The different areas of the Bible that you can kind of get a new understanding of from your own personal experience.

Well, it sounds like you've at least grown to love it. Um, when we sent out the character list for this book series, I thought either someone is gonna jump at Moses or no one is gonna pick him because he's too daunting to tackle.

 I feel like if the Bible was a movie and we checked the IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes cast list, Moses would rank somewhere in the top five. 📍 You know what I mean? But what I really wanna know is why you chose to write about him.

Hmm.

Well, there's a couple of reasons why I chose Moses. When I was younger, probably in my early teens, I started reading the Bible seriously for the first time. And as you do with most books, I started at the beginning and started reading my way through, and I got to the story of Moses and I stopped.

That's as far as I got for probably a year because I got jealous. I got angry and hurt that God would speak to Moses face-to-face, and yet he doesn't speak to us today face-to-face. We don't hear a voice audibly. We don't have those kind of experiences of miracles in our lives. And I was just angry and jealous and I was like, why can't I have this?

And I closed the Bible for a year before returning again. And then I started in the New Testament. So that was probably a wiser place to start. Hmm. That thought always stuck with me from a young age of I want what Moses had. I want that intimacy with God, that ability to know what God has to say to me to know what his will for my life is.

It's interesting. I feel like I've experienced this and I've seen other people experience this also. Not necessarily just with Bible characters, but looking at people and thinking, wow, they're so confident, or, wow, they're such a good leader, or, wow, this or that, and we can get jealous and we can get insecure about our own abilities.

Often I feel like we look at people who are older than us and we think these things, You know, it's not very often that I look at someone younger me and I want their maturity levels or I want their skills, and I think often we forget that these people have likely gone through a lot to get to that point. Often we don't see what people go through to get to where they are now and so it's easy for us to think that they are that way just because they are that way.

Yeah. There's a whole journey in which we go through in life, which takes out our spiritual walk and our understanding of God, and it's so easy to see the highlights of people's lives. Just like on social media.

You see the highlights and you're like, oh my goodness, their life is so great, but. I guess the Bible is also the highlights of people's lives and the lowlights, and so you, it's easy to jump on this idea of, oh, Moses was this incredible person of faith and not look at what it took to get him to that point.

So that's, I guess something which has influenced me a lot in my own spiritual journey. And it gives me a lot of assurance knowing that Moses, this big figure in Judeo-Christian history is just an ordinary guy when you break it down, when you actually look at life. He's just an ordinary guy who struggled with things that we struggle with, his sense of identity and purpose, belonging, burdens, burnout, like he's just a normal person.

Yeah.

I guess the thing that made a difference was he was willing to listen.

Hmm. How long did it take you to get to that point where you were really jealous of Moses to where you saw him in his real form?

It did take a couple of years.

I kind of left the Old Testament aside for a little while when I was getting to know God a bit. And I focused mostly on the New Testament and the stories of Jesus and those miracles and everything there. And once I'd fallen in love with God, I think that's when I could see the story from a different perspective.

And I went back and I read the Old Testament, and instead of being jealous of what Moses had, I could instead see God. I was reading it from the perspective of God in this story instead of where am I in this story or where is the humor in this story? It went from me looking at Moses' experience to what was it that God was trying to communicate to Moses and to the people and to me through the whole story of the Exodus.

Hmm.

And that kind of changed my attitude from being one of jealousy to being one of wonder at the level of intricacy detail, which God weaved into not only the life of Moses, but also the entire story of the exodus and then it going even broader, the plan of salvation. And then, the universe itself. It just. Each little aspect that I noticed of God built a new component of this grand understanding of who he is.

Yeah. So sort of shifting your perspective a little bit. Yeah you talk about Moses' life, how it's broken up in three 40 year segments. Can you talk us through them? Maybe let's just start with the first 40 years of his life. What kind of man he was in each phase or what kind of struggles he faced.

I always imagine that Moses in his first 40 years was just like any of us in our first 40 years of life. You know, you wanna do something, you wanna make something of yourself, you've got opportunities at your disposal and you wanna pursue them and do the best you can.

Set yourself up well. And I see Moses, he was a man of integrity, of great position and influence. He had the ability to speak well, he was trained in understanding the laws and systems of the Egyptian Empire, had resources at his disposal. He was a man of faith, and he saw that he was different. He knew that he'd been set apart for a reason because he was rescued.

From murder and placed in the Palace of the King. And so I imagine that his whole first 40 years of life, he had this desire to make use of his responsibility and his position, and so because of his faith, he could see that the situation his people were in was unfair. We know from the Bible that he set aside his position as the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

He set that all aside. He set aside the riches of Egypt in order to be considered one of the Israelites.

But the struggle for him in this experience is that, you know, you can identify with someone, but that doesn't mean that those people will identify with you. He was raised in a palace. He was given all the special treatments that, an Egyptian prince would be given. And here he is setting it all aside, all of these luxuries and privileges in order to be like, Hey, I'm one of you guys now to these Israelites who've faced persecution and hardship and whipping and he is like, Hey, I'm one of you guys now, obviously there was quite a response to him saying, and they would reject him and make fun of him.

And so from no matter what angle he tried to come at this problem, there was almost no way he could by his own power do anything. He wanted the Israelites to accept him and they instead made fun of him. The Egyptians made fun of him 'cause he wasn't Egyptian. They all knew that he'd been found in the basket. He didn't belong to either the Egyptian world or the Israelite world

was like caught between two worlds.

Yeah. His whole life. He's just caught between two worlds trying to do the best that he can do, but never quite succeeding. And I can just imagine him wrestling with God and saying, Hey, God. I want to serve you. I can see that I've been put on this earth for a purpose. Why is it not working? And in these prayers, in these tears, these nights of agony where he is just achieving nothing, he doesn't hear anything. He just has to sit, question him. The wondering of, am I actually set apart for a purpose, or am I just, some, entitled, disillusioned Prince of Egypt, who thinks that he's more, he is.

Yeah, I mean, it's understandable that the Israelites were reluctant about trusting him because Moses was human. I'm sure he went through a phase of being a foolish young man who had everything anyone could ever want or imagine. He probably went through a stage of needing to be humble and thinking I'm a part of the palace. 📍

This is why I love the Film Prince of Egypt, because I feel like it shows that human side of him as a young man who is grappling with his identity.

But let's move on. Let's go to the next stage of his life. Let's go to his forties, to his eighties. Tell us about that period of his life.

So in this period he has done everything in his own might to side up with the Israelites, to the point of murdering an Egyptian to prove his allegiance in some sort of way. And he's rejected by both. The Israelites and the Egyptians. He's wanted for murder and so he flees to the middle of nowhere where no one knows him.

And for 40 years he's a nomad. He's in the wilderness with a community around him that's not his own people. He's a stranger. He finds a family and he settles down. Those 40 years, he has to wrestle and unravel who he thought he was because by the time you are 40, you've kind of established your identity, you're sure of who you are, you're confident, whereas here, Moses has to completely rethink his whole identity, his attitude towards God and how he relates to God. Because up to this point, he was of a performance mindset. He wanted to do things for God, and he had to escape that perspective and see that it's not about what he could achieve for God or what great accomplishment he could live out in his life.

Instead, his life had become nothing. It was just a shepherd who didn't belong to any kind of people. He had a family which are mostly unnamed in the Bible and his life had little significance. Hmm.

Big change going from prince of Egypt to. Nomadic man in the desert, it sounds like he's having a midlife crisis in this moment. I wonder because you know, he lived two, he was 120, so the lifespan was a little longer. But when I look at this phase of him, I think, oh, maybe that was like comparable to our, twenties or thirties when we are like trying to figure everything out. We study law and we study psychology and try and map out the rest of our life. Whereas him in this stage, he is having a family and he is working. But, what that looks like is not like grinding how we see it.

Yeah. We assume that he would be striving to make something of himself in this period. But he's already kind of done that and failed. And so this period is just a very humbling experience for him, whereas he is having to confront the reality of, like you said like a midlife crisis.

He is,  not who he set out to be in his earlier years. Who he set himself up to be and his understanding of God was completely wrong. And so I see his experience of these next 40 years between 40 and 80 years old. He's spending time actually getting to know God instead of trying to do stuff. He's realized god wants to know Moses and for Moses to know him, and so while he's out there in the field watching over the sheep, he can have those quiet conversations with God just like we do. You know, you're in your car, you're driving somewhere and you're worried about something, and so you start talking to God in prayer.

Moses may not have heard God's voice during this, actually. He didn't hear God's voice during this time. But he knew God's voice from those silent conversations with God.

Hmm.

And he became familiar with the heart of God and what it is that God actually desires from his people. It's not to do anything. It's not to be anything, it's just to be loved. Mm. And that's something that we can all kind of struggle with. There is this pressure to perform in society. But God kind of flips out on its head completely and he says none of this matters at all. Because this life is it's fleeting. It's only gonna be here for a moment. What matters is that you understand my love for you and that you can enjoy my love for you.

Yeah. I love this period of Moses' life because often it's the next 40 years that, gets a lot of the attention, but these 40 years were so formative to his next four years, and if he didn't have the next 40 years of leading the Israelites out of Egypt, I wonder if we would be in awe of his intimacy with God or, if that's something that we would be jealous of.

My assumption is not because it doesn't seem like a period that's praiseworthy, but those mundane moments in life are so, valuable they give us the opportunity to spend time with God and really get to know him and have an intimate relationship with him.

And I think that's probably something, especially people listening in our generation, to glean from is like. We can get so hyper-focused on being busy and grinding and hustling, and totally forget about our relationship with God, and just kind of abandon it. We can get so stressed about like, I'm not where I thought I would be and I need to be doing this and that instead of remembering that all of this is about God and getting to know him and all he wants is for us to have a relationship with him and to love him.

And it's like it's easy for us to chase the sensational in our lives and be like, I wanna have that parting of the Red Sea experience or standing up to bear experience. But those only

come

after we've established habits and a routine of spending time with God in prayer or reading the Bible.

It's those quieter, more uncomfortable experiences in the silence that prepare us for those more sensational moments, which come along.

 Mm. I think it's interesting. At the start of this episode, you said, you know, you were jealous of Moses, that he had, such a close relationship with the Lord and would hear him and would talk to him.

But in this period Moses wrestled with a lot of silence from God, and likely he also had people in his life or people he knew who did hear from the Lord.

Mm.

And I think it's something that all of us experienced at one point or another. Craving to know his will for our lives craving to hear him and have his answer, but just not receiving it. I know that there's been times in my own personal life where I've prayed for things sincerely and begged God to intervene or make a difference. And there's only silence. And it's confronting because then you see other people experiencing answers to prayer and having these incredible testimonies and experiences, and you are there like, why doesn't God hear me? Yeah. Why can't I have that? Hmm. But I think the story of Moses is an encouragement that God does hear us. Even in those 40 years, 80 years of silence, God hears us and he knows  where our heart is at, and sometimes he may not answer in the ways that we hope or expect, but he always answers.

Hmm. Yeah. I feel your sister. It can, definitely be disheartening, but yeah, he is a part of it all. Um, eighties to a hundred and twenties, which is wild. But walk us through that phase of Moses' of his life.

Yeah. Moses has finally settled into his acceptance that his life has been wasted and he's become no one. And then  he gets this phone call one day from a fiery bush. And God calls to him out of this burning bush.

And what I love is that Moses doesn't say, Hey, who are you? What on Earth is going on? He's so calm and he is like, he recognizes the voice of God. He knows who it's, he's talking to him. And then that's when God gives him the charge to go to Egypt and redeem his people out of slavery. And I can just imagine the mental gymnastics that Moses must be doing at this point.

He's like, you kidding me? The whole first 40 years of my life I was trying to do this and now you want me to go back? Wow. What a sense of humor. I can just imagine him being like this, and we see that on four different occasions. Moses says to God, oh, no, no, no, I can't do this.

Send someone else. I'm not good at speaking. I'm not a leader. I'm not built for this.

Yeah. Even at this point of his life, he's like, uh, nope, not the person. There's better people for that.

Yeah, and to be fair, there probably were better equipped speakers. Yeah, charismatic leaders. But God wanted Moses because he knew spiritually

the struggles, which the Israelites were gonna have to go through in order to get to know God and have a new perspective of who God is in their lives. Moses had experienced silence from God and so had the Israelites during their slavery. Mm-hmm. Moses had experienced not knowing who they were, and so had the Israelites in losing their identity in Egypt.

And Moses had to rediscover the heart of God, which the Israelites had to. So Moses had been equipped by God for this very purpose, and yet he still doesn't wanna go. And so these next 40 years, Moses is really struggling, to be the leader that God has called him to be. And it's not by his own strength that he can do any of the miracles or that he can lead these people.

And he's realized that. He's realized that from  his own shame and humiliation in the first 40 years of his life and the silence and humbling of God in the next 40 years. Hmm. Moses realizes that it's not by his own power or his own strength that he can free these people or do anything for them. It's only God who can do these things,

and he's just

there to be the vessel.

Yeah. I feel like sometimes in our own lives we can look at ways God has through and we can justify it after it's happened. So for example, if we pray for a miracle over someone and maybe they live or heal or get some opportunity, we start to think, oh, well maybe that was because of this and that.

Or maybe that wasn't a miracle. But when you think of some of the experiences Moses had in terms of like the parting of the sea, like, he would've, so evidently known that it was God working through him.

Mm-hmm.

And it was important for Moses to be so humble so that the people could see God. Yeah. And not just see the leader who was charismatic and doing all these amazing things for them.

They had to be able to see God through the person.

Hmm.

And so I think in that sense, when the Bible says that Moses was the most humble man on the earth, it's not a humble brag. It's revealing how great an impact God had on Moses so that the people see straight through Moses to God. He was fully transparent with the people about his faith and his

relationship to God. They could just see God through him. Amazing. Yeah. And so, I guess the last 40 years of his life, you know he's had a peaceful life up to this point, sort of. And in instead of being able to live out his last years in retirement, he has to face angry, hungry, complaining, whinging, rebellious people. He has to face these people who don't want to listen to him, who constantly argue and bicker and fight with him and try and show them who God is and show them God's love time and time and time again, and somehow maintain.

 Compassion and mercy and justice to these people

 yeah.

40 years is a long time. There would've been a lot of difficult moments where it was like, are you still here? What are you doing?

Yeah. And like what was only meant to be a short journey or what he thought it was gonna be a short journey. 40 days traveling to Jordan turns into 40 years and just constantly on the move, never knowing how long you're gonna be stopped or what lies ahead, whether enemies or lack of water or whatever. It would've been quite challenging. And yet he maintained a peaceful, calm disposition because he knew how to trust God in those moments of uncertainty. He knew how to just rely completely on God for his every need.

Mm. After looking at the life of Moses, what is one or two of the key takeaways that you take from his journey?

I suppose One of the key takeaways that I get from Moses's journey is that you don't have to have it all sorted out in life and that life won't go how you plan, no matter how hard you try to set up life for yourself. God has a plan. And he can turn our mistakes into his glory. He only cares about having a relationship with us, loving us. He doesn't care about what we can do for him. Sure, he would love to be a partner with us in doing amazing things for other people. But that's not his prerogative. That's not his goal. His goal is just to help us to understand his heart.

And I love the story of Moses because the last time we see Moses isn't when he dies. It isn't him not entering the promised land because after all those 40 years of wandering in the desert, he doesn't get to go into the promised Land. He has to die beforehand, but that's not the end for him. We see him at the Transfiguration with Jesus, and he has the beautiful privilege and honor of encouraging Jesus when Jesus is struggling with the very same things that he rest, his identity and sense of purpose and trying to lead people who rebellious and stubborn and hated him to towards God and to care for them above and beyond his own existence.

Hmm.

So that's one thing. And another thing I would take from the story of Moses is the perspective which we have  on our lives, our faith, and God. I think by the end of his life, Moses had gained a perspective of eternity. He wasn't any longer looking at his life in terms of the 120 years that he was living.

That was just a small snippet in the grand scheme. He was looking at his life and the life of those around him in terms of their eternal salvation and making it to the promised land, making it to heaven, and teaching people about God so that they could get there. It was less about the promised land and more about.

The promised Land.

Yeah. Yeah. Incredible.  I love it. um This series is called Living Covenant. And so I'd love to hear from you how this perspective of Moses' life links back to that idea of living covenant.

Hmm.

The covenant, as we understand it from the Bible, is this idea of God coming down and making a deal so to speak with humanity and saying, I promise that I will save you and I'm going to do everything in my power to make that happen. And that was fulfilled with Jesus coming down. But Moses, he's kind of the forefather of the covenant.

He received the law from God. He received all of the ordinances and practices. Religious symbols, which would point forward to Jesus and the Jews had over time become so reliant on these symbols that they lost sight of the spiritual implication behind it and the heart of God that instituted it in the first place.

And so I think, the Living Covenant comes out in the life of Moses because before Moses received the law of God at the 10 Commandments and all of the, statutes and legislation for the Israelites to follow as a country or as a people, Moses already had that covenant. And it's a personal covenant.

It's not just a covenant between God and his people. It's a covenant within our hearts personally that God says to each one of us, I died for you. I am going to do everything in my power to save you. I have a plan for your life and I'm going to enter into your life and work things out for good. And to me, that's what the covenant in Moses' story is all about.

It's God   shaping Moses' life so that Moses can see the heart of God.  Because that's what the covenant is about. Anyway, it's about  bringing us into communion. God again, the communion that was lost in the Garden of Eden. God just wants to

restore our connection to him.

Hmm. Yeah, there's an incredible chapter in patriarchs and prophets. That looks at Moses' death and his final moments where God shows him basically a film of his whole life. Of you know, being saved from the river, to his time in Egypt to, through the desert.

And then he shows him not just the past, but he also shows him the future. He shows, Jesus being born in Bethlehem, Jesus going to the cross and resurrecting, and then the future all the way to the second coming. And so Moses kind of gets this snapshot of eternity.   but then in all of that he reminds Moses all of this is about our relationship you are made for me. And it's all about that. It's not about the events and the miracles and what's to come. And it's this realization moment for Moses, which is amazing. Final question, Olivia. Yes. If you could describe Moses in one word, what would it be?

Ooh.

I mean the copy, that answer is to say humble, because he's literally described as that in the Bible, so I won't use that.

I would say

Probably just faithful.

And I think it's because, you know, in the silence, in the hardships, he never let go.

Even in the, rebellious, annoying people who drove him to almost insanity. He never let go of God.

 Awesome. Well, thank you so much Olivia, for talking to us. We loved your article. For anyone who wants to read it, it is in the Living Covenant book and it is called Moses and the True Covenant of Intimacy.

Thanks for having me. It's been really great.

Alright, thanks Olivia. See you. Bye.