Right Idea!!

“Right idea, right idea!” were the words my husband bellowed at our most recent basketball outing. Lots of families gravitate towards one particular sport and ours just happens to be basketball. Over the years, I couldn’t help but observe that the level of game engagement, with my husband, is in direct proportion to whether one of his own children is playing. It tends to demand all his attention. Tonight that was the case.

I love when he shouts out this kind of encouragement because I know that it is an abbreviated form of “right idea even though it didn’t work.” The play was right on target. Maybe it was a strategy that went awry, or a pass that was missed or foul that was forced to prevent the shot from making its way into the hoop or maybe the timing was just off. It was the right idea but it just didn’t turn out the way that the player had hoped.

Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever had a great idea and it seemed like a right idea but it just didn’t pan out the way that you had expected? Somewhere the plan went awry and didn’t work out the way you thought it should. Did you know this kind of thing happened alot in scripture? Take Moses for example.

Exodus records Moses first attempt at saving his people.

“One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, ‘Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?’ The man said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?’ Then Moses was afraid and thought, ‘What I did must have become known’.” Exodus 2:11-14

Acts gives us a broader picture about what might have been going on in Moses’ head when he did this.

“Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.”
Acts 7:25

Right idea, right idea Moses! Unfortunately scripture reveals that his timing, his training and his perspective weren't right, just yet.


Moses had the right idea but the wrong timing. God did indeed call him to be the human hand that God would bring deliverance of his people through but Moses time schedule wasn't in sync with God's.

After this episode, Moses flees to Midian to escape death from Pharaoh. He is there for 40 years, when an angel appears to him in the flames of a burning bush. It was God calling Moses off the bench. He was on deck for the next God play. Now it was time.

Moses training wasn't complete. In Acts 7:22 we learn that “Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.” When we re-visit him 40 years later, he confesses “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow in speech and tongue.” Exodus 4:10

What happened Moses? “The LORD said to him, ‘Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who give him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.” Exodus 4:11-12

It would appear that Moses had been humbled. Deserts have a way of doing that to you. He was about to do the very thing that was on his heart to do in the first place but he now he was doing it with the power of God rather then his own strength. His training was complete.

Lastly, Moses perspective was askew. He set out to deliver the Israelites one man at a time but God’s intention was for him to deliver them all.

I wonder do you recognize any bit of this in your own life. Do you have an idea that you are pretty sure is a God idea? Are you frustrated that it isn’t panning out the way you had hoped? Could it just be a timing problem, a training problem or maybe it is a perspective problem?

If any of this is resonating in your heart and mind, don’t be discouraged and allow feelings of failure to overtake your vision. Don’t give up on what you know is your God dream. Can you believe that your heavenly Father is as riveted to your game and He is rooting for you as my husband was for my son? You can count on it. Instead of focusing on your failures which are so destructive why not replace them with the imagery of God and his multitude of angels sitting in a glorious stadium in heaven shouting and clapping with a thunderous roar that would rock this planet exclaiming “Right idea, right idea!”

“For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.”
2 Chronicles 16:9 NASB