Sunday's Hymn Applied

Part of the reason that I chose to post the particular hymn that I did from yesterday's worship service was because it so strongly made me think about the previous week's lesson in my study of the life of Moses. I cannot imagine a trouble more awful assailing a family than the one Moses' parents faced in the situation they found themselves in at the time of his birth.

The story is told in the first two chapters of Exodus but to restate it briefly here, Pharoah had ordered the killing of all Hebrew baby boys immediately upon their birth by throwing them in the Nile. This is after his plan to have the midwives kill them did not work out. Now, as members of an enslaved people under the Pharoah's rule, well...talk about "dangers affright!"

But Amram and Jochebed were people of faith, as we are told in Hebrews 11:23, and so they hid Moses for three months. They knew that God's "promise assures us, 'The Lord will provide.'" And so He did! Jochebed placed the child in the Nile in his little ark and waited for God's providence and oh boy, did He deliver!

Miriam, Moses' older and very trustworthy sister, was there to witness the Pharoah's daughter's discovery of the tiny boy who just happened to cry at the moment of discovery eliciting pity from the Egyptian princess. Miraim's proximity allowed her to offer to find a "Hebrew woman" to nurse the baby. And so Jochebed found herself with her infant son in her care for the next few years. Talk about "triumph by faith" in God's providence!

Through no strength of his own, and no goodness that he or his family could claim, Moses life was saved and he enjoyed the blessings of his God-fearing family for the first part of his childhood and the privilege and protection that adoption as the Pharoah's daughter afforded him as he grew up. All this in preparation for the role that God had chosen for him to play in the story of His people.

For me, the comfort and awe that I felt in singing that hymn was so magnified as I reflected on the story of Moses young life and thought about how our gracious God has provided for our own family as well in some scary situations.

Update: In thinking about this post last night as I lay in bed, I couldn't help but make the connection to the very painful troubles that the Stauffer family is now suffering. I did not "know" this family as so many of you do. I never read Terry's blog before, in fact. But it seems apparent to me that this is a family of faith that will also look to God's promise to provide with the certainty that He will. I hope you will join me and the many, many others who are lifting them up in prayer to our God that He will comfort them as only He can.