Genesis 50; Exodus 1, 2:1-10; Matthew 16:13-28, 17:1-9; Psalms 21:1-13; Proverbs 5:1-6

I’m having a hard time knowing where we should start today. Now that we are getting into Moses, we will of course cover him in bits and spurts, but it is a well known and treasured story, so I will continue to allow the Lord to lead where in the Scripture we focus on every day. Today I am finding myself drawn into the story of Moses birth and adoption by Pharaoh’s daughter.

Such a terrible place to start: the Israelites are living under Egyptian rule and oppression, and the first thing we see is an order: baby boys should be killed at birth or thrown into the Nile. As a mother to a little boy, I can’t imagine how this must have felt. Women were honored when they bore children, specifically sons, to their husbands, and Pharoah was taking away the honor those women were providing to their families. Of course, he was also trying to take away the strength of the Israelites by limiting the amount of able-bodied men that would be available for any sort of opposition against himself in the future.

But Moses mother’ saw him and knew there was something special about him. Maybe he was hearty and healthy; maybe she had an inkling that the Lord had already chosen him. In any way, she hid him away for three months, before fulfilling her duty of putting him into the Nile. She was crafty in the way she did this of course–she gave her son the chance to succeed and survive. I’m sure she had no idea how he could survive, and I can’t imagine how distraught she must have felt, especially knowing he was special. But the Lord provided.

Again, I’m always blown away by the answers the Lord provides because it’s never something that I would have guessed would happen. Pharoah’s daughter finds the basket, and obviously sees the same inkling that his mother had. She takes pity on him. And we do not know what state Pharoah’s daughter was in at the time–maybe she couldn’t have children, maybe she was already a mother and saw a precious, beautiful child before her. But she didn’t discard him–she accepted him as her own.

And yet, Moses’ mother was blessed with more time with him, sanctioned by Egypt, and compensated! I love that! The Lord provided protection for her child, and financial compensation for taking care of him. And she got more time with the baby she knew she had to save.

I’ve expressed before that I have dealt with extreme anxiety since my son was born, and intrusive thoughts, and even this morning I was unfortunately hit with panic when thinking about some travel we are going to do with our son at the end of next month. It’s very hard for me not to imagine the things that could go wrong, especially when the news is filled with uncertainty and unexpected circumstances. But then I read stories like this and can’t help but ask myself why I doubt the Lord’s ability to keep us save. Moses mother may very well have expected her daughter to report that I wild animal had found it’s way to her son, and she would have been heartbroken to hear of his loss. Instead, she was given her child back to care for, and paid to do it!

The Lord works out our circumstances in ways we can not fathom, but I think that He can only do that when we trust Him to do so. When we give over full control to Him, then His will will absolutely be accomplished. Not in the way we expect or imagine, but in a way that could only be His providence and provision.

Father God, today I ask that we would remember this fully. You Father are our light and life, and your plan is bigger and better than anything we could put together. Show us how to trust this and turns our lives over fully and wholly to you.

Amen!