Now he would be just Moses. Fortune and fame would no longer realistically be part of his thought processes. Eventually perhaps, fortune and fame would leave his thoughts altogether. Their memories would become so distant it would seem they never existed, but certainly never to the point that Moses would no longer be haunted by this unfortunate turn of events. His lack of any foreseeable successes would now be, as Paul stated, a thorn in his flesh (cf. 2 Corinthians 12). Always there, taunting him. Never leaving, even for a moment, and never yielding. Oh, the heart may remain steadfast, but the flesh would struggle. Moses would become a washed up has-been, but the process of becoming a washed up has-been is not a position someone just assumes, or acquires. The position is not given to you. You do not walk in and assume the responsibilities and rights thereof; quite the contrary. The position is earned; it is never an entitlement. One must labor long and hard to acquire the esteem brought about by being a washed up has-been. And the thorn of never amounting to anything but an outcast, of never being above a low life, would haunt him, again. And again. For the next forty years, Moses would scratch out a life working for his father-in-law, a man who was priest of Midian before ironically becoming an outcast himself. Moses had everything. Now he had nothing. How degrading. How humiliating. He was no longer served; he was the servant. He tended the flocks. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, he would be but a shepherd. On and on his days would go caring for the animals, alone only with his thoughts for company. His life no longer had a sense of purpose. No goals, no objectives, and no hope. Hope had long given way to accepted despair. No short eight-hour workdays with promising colleagues for Moses. No two hour lunches to discuss activities of the approaching weekend with friends. Long hours, very long hours. Perhaps eighteen or twenty-hour days were the rule rather than the exception. Likely, first to rise, last to lie. Exhausted, day after day, he toiled for forty arduous years, nearly 15,000 days in the sweltering heat and freezing cold alone with his thoughts. No purpose. Then God showed up.