Relating to a Prophet

Sitting here tonight I felt compelled to watch The Prince of Egypt.  I absolutely love this movie, as it holds some great moral value and it tells one of my favorite bible stories.  But tonight it’s different, in a way, than it usually is when I watch it. 

The first thing I noticed was that I felt so warm, so happy, while I was watching it.  I felt like my heart would burst from my chest, so great was the feeling of utter contentedness and peace.  And as I watched further, I realized a new connection to the great Prophet, Moses, which I never had before…

Although Moses was a Prophet, a Prince, and obviously of far more importance than I – as far as the world is concerned, anyway – he and I now share a great similarity.  Not far into the movie, Prince Moses runs into his sister and brother, whom he does not know.  His sister tells him that he is their flesh and blood, and he doesn’t believe her.  This is quite understandable, considering that he was raised his entire life believing that he was a Prince of Egypt.  Well in the next scene he runs home and the song All I’ve Ever Wanted plays.  In it he is saying that “this is [his] home,” and that if anyone says otherwise they “couldn’t be more wrong.”  Of course, not long after that he discovers that he really is the son of a slave, and that his entire life’s story had been a fabrication.

Although I wasn’t lied to about being adopted – trust me; I’ve seen my dad’s kid pictures and we’re pretty much identical at the age of 10 – I have had something just as devastating happen, in my opinion: I grew up believing that I was a member of the One True Church, the only church that had the “fullness of the gospel” and that God, Himself, had come to the earth and told a young man to restore His church to the earth.  Then I started doing research, and it became evident that I had been living a lie.

Like Moses did in his song, I at first denied it.  It couldn’t be true.  There was no way the Church wasn’t the ‘true’ church.  Simple, blatant denial was my first response.  But then each bit of evidence became apparent.  Each fact, each journal entry, each video and lecture, all started to make the truth clear.  And then I felt lost.  And betrayed.  And hurt.  In fact I was – and part of me is, still – experiencing so many emotions that I wasn’t sure which one to feel!  But slowly I started to resolve those feelings.  The confusion gave way to surety.  The hurt gave way to resignation.  And the anger gave way to peace. 

While I still have a great deal to go before each of my many emotions sort themselves out, I can say that I hope to be just like Moses.  I may never part a large body of water, or lead a nation of people out of my homeland (I think it’s safe to say I’ll never do either of those things, actually), I do hope that someday soon all of my negative feelings concerning the religion I grew up in will dissipate entirely, and that it can be placed entirely with love.  Love for God, love for His word, and love for my fellow man.  I hope that I, like Moses, can do God’s will in all things, and that He will be proud of me.  This is my hope.  And I shall not rest until it becomes my reality.