Before Moses......
June 21, 2012
Ephesians 3:20 says, “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.” The amplified version reads, “far above what we dare ask or think, infinitely beyond our highest prayers!”
God's ability + our willingness = God working more than we could imagine or ask.
Throughout the book of Genesis, there are many individuals that put their trust in God’s ability. We’ve studied Noah and Abraham and how their willingness to obey God helped to create a nation. We could certainly talk about Joseph and how his trust in God worked far more than he could ever imagine- a true rags to riches story.
At the beginning of Exodus, Joseph died and the relationship that the Israelites had with the Egyptians diminished. We observe the Israelites desperate situation in Exodus 1:11: “So they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor. And they built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Raamses.”
Once again, it seems like an overwhelming situation. How could it possibly work out? Many of you reading this are thinking, “Moses will save them!” Even though, of course, you are right, the Israelites didn’t know about Moses yet because he hadn’t been born! I want to focus on someone else that had to put her trust in God’s ability before Moses……….
Pharaoh had put the Israelites under slavery. He made the Israelites lives, “bitter with hard labor.” Still, the Israelites grew in numbers. Worried that the Israelites would rise up and join Egypt’s enemies, Pharaoh decreed that all male children should be killed at birth or thrown into the Nile. We see in chapter 1 the importance of life to God. Even though the Hebrew midwives were instructed to kill the males at birth, they lied and said they couldn’t get to the women before the babies were born. God blessed the midwives for protecting the babies by giving them children of their own.
In the 2nd chapter of Exodus, we read of a marriage of two Levites, Amram and Jochebed. Jochebed became pregnant and gave birth to a son named Moses. We see in Jochebed the same fierce protection of babies that the midwives had shown. So, Amram and Jochebed hid Moses for three months hoping to keep Moses safe from Pharaoh’s decree. As is the case, you cannot keep a small baby a secret long.
Exodus 2:3 “But when she could hide him no longer, she got him a wicker basket and covered it over with tar and pitch. Then she put the child into it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile.”
This act is the ultimate when it comes to the part of the equation having to do with “our willingness.” Jochebed trusted in God to protect her baby boy to the point that she would put a 3 month old baby in a basket and send it down the river. (It is interesting when you realize that this river was the very one where newborn baby boys were thrown to their death. God can take a hopeless situation and turn it completely upside-down into a hope-filled situation!) Jochebed trusted God with her child in scary circumstances. The Bible doesn’t explain if God directly told Jochebed the basket plan. But Jochebed would have known that the baby boy’s lives were important to God, and so she protected her baby as best she could.
Miriam, Moses’ sister, watched the basket from some reeds by the shore. Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the river and discovered baby Moses in the basket. Miriam approached Pharaoh’s daughter and offered Jochebed’s services to nurse him.
For Jochebed, she could have never imagined having Pharaoh’s blessing to nurse her own male child.
God's ability + our willingness = God working more than we could imagine or ask.
What is the impossible task for you?
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Actually, for me, the more impossible a task seems, the easier I find to trust God - knowing that it is totally out of my hands and I can do nothing about it. The more "possible", but difficult, situations are where I get in trouble - trying to do it myself, rather than lean on Him who gives me strength. Great post, though, especially for us Moms who have difficulty letting our children go - what a great example Jochabed was!
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