Midian wasn’t on Moses’ map. Egypt was.

For Moses, we are going to read how, in a foreign place, he married, had a son, and became a shepherd. Yet God was watching all along. Nothing gets slipped past Him. He knows it all.

“Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. ²² Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom,saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.” ²³ During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. ²⁴ God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. ²⁵ So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.” (Exodus 2:21-25)

Midian was not where Moses had planned to end up. He was a foreigner in a foreign land. This was a huge detour for him, but God was still there.

The chapters of our lives can be so very different from one another, and yet God manages to be present with us in each one. He doesn’t get lost in the detours of our paths.

Meanwhile, back in Egypt, there was a sound of people who at the end of themselves and are groaning.

And God heard it. He saw Moses, and He heard His people.

God heard, God remembered, God looked, God was concerned.

God had been watching all along.

If you are waiting today for something, waiting for change perhaps, then this is your encouragement. God heard before Moses arrived.

Moses had nowhere else to go. A fugitive on the run, sitting by a well in a foreign place he did not know. He had stopped writing the story of his life. He could not predict at all what would happen next. But what did happen was part of God’s plan. It reminds us that the doors God opens for us are often unlocked by the smallest acts of kindness.

“Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. ¹⁷ Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock. ¹⁸ When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?” ¹⁹ They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.” ²⁰ “And where is he?” Reuel asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.” (Exodus 2 v16-20)

Moses sat down by a well. A fugitive in the desert. He wasn’t doing anything particular. Maybe he was wondering what he would do to rebuild his life after escaping the Pharaoh. Then the incident happened. It had nothing to do with him. There were seven women being chased away from the well by shepherds.

But this was Moses. The Moses who just couldn’t watch an Egyptian beat a Hebrew slave. He got up, intervened and drew the water for the daughters. Thankfully, he still hadn’t learned to look the other way.

This simple act of kindness was the segue into being in the exact place God wanted him to be. Moses must have thought he was hiding from everything and everyone he knew. But by that well that day, he was not hiding from God.

A new chapter was about to begin for Moses and God was there watching his every move.

This section is not the story of a bad man but a good man moving too soon. A lesson for us all not to move in our own strength.

“One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labour. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. ¹² Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. ¹³ 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?”  ¹⁴ 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.” ¹⁵ When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.” (Exodus 2 v 11-15)

Are you a person who stands with the oppressed, who cannot ignore suffering and who cannot simply turn a blind eye? Moses was that person. God would use all of that pent-up emotion one day. But for now, his timing and method were wrong.

He tried to cover up what he had done. He had to. He had hoped no one would have known, after all, there wasn’t anyone who had seen him killing the Egyptian. Well, no one except the Israelite whom he had saved.

The man he defended became his accuser. Ever known that?

So he ran, and God let him. God let him run to the desert, where the next part of his life will commence. This is a relocation for Moses, not a disqualification. He begins a refining process in the desert. One impulsive moment in Egypt needed forty years in the wilderness to teach that God’s work has to be done God’s way.

What feels like exile is often just formation. God had Moses where he wanted him, in the desert. He would emerge from there, but not for now.

He didn’t choose his name, nor the river, nor indeed the princess who found him. However, every detail had been arranged for his survival.

¹⁰ When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses,saying, “I drew him out of the water.” (Exodus 2 v 10)

The adult Moses would one day stand at another body of water (the Red Sea) and watch as God drew an entire nation out of their slavery in Egypt.

But for now, without him knowing, he is drawn out of the water by a princess who, in trying to explain what happened at the river, names him Moses. None of us has any say in where we are born or what we are called; our choices come later. Yet there will be times throughout life, as it was for Moses, that it feels like you are back in that basket, helpless and carried by currents you never chose. But you worship God, who is a miraculous arranger. He will draw you out, hold on.

He ordered the steps of a princess’s walk along the Nile that day, and He can order yours too.

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There are times in life when circumstances force us to let go of what we cherish most. Today, we will see that there are also times when there is a blessing in the return of that.

“Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” ⁸ “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. ⁹ Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him.” (Exodus 2 v 7-9)

This account shows us what can happen when we place what is most precious to us into God’s hands. Faced with an impossible situation, Moses’ mother entrusted her baby to God’s care, placing him in a basket on the Nile and believing that God would do what she could not. Yet this passage illustrates a profound spiritual truth: when we entrust things to God, they often come back to us in ways we never expected.

There are moments in life when we must release things into God’s hands. This story reveals that surrender is not the end. Often, it is the place where God’s faithfulness begins to unfold in ways we could not have imagined.

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There are moments in the Bible story when split-second decisions change the course of history. Here is one of those moments between a Hebrew baby and an Egyptian Royal daughter.

“Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. ⁶ She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.” (Exodus 2:5-6)

You may be the daughter of the Pharaoh. You, above everyone, may know the rules. What should have happened was that you would call the guards and arrange for your father’s evil law to be enforced. It wasn’t that she didn’t know. Everyone knew the command.

Look what happened. She opens the basket. She sees the baby. She identifies it as a Hebrew baby. But something happened. “… she felt sorry for him.” Compassion wins in that moment. The cry of the helpless child stirred her heart in a way that all the prejudice and the politics and maybe even fear could not

God didn’t need to topple the empire from the outside. He was already on the inside. God is everywhere. He planted His purpose in the heart of the house of the enemy of His people. The purpose was for mercy to become more important than indifference.  Now, if God can turn the heart of Pharaoh’s own daughter, no heart is beyond His reach. No system is too hostile for His purposes to break through.

This wasn’t just the rescue of one child; it was the start of God intervening, and He did so through the pity of an unlikely person.

God doesn’t wait outside of a terrible circumstance; He is right there in the middle of it, turning hearts, planting purpose and pouring mercy into the situation.

If He could do that in Pharaoh’s house, He can do it in yours.

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The opening verses of Exodus 2 tell a story of courage, love, and faith under impossible circumstances. After the courage of Shiphrah and Puah (the midwives), who defied Pharaoh’s command at great personal risk, we now meet a family who must live with the consequences of that same edict.

“Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, ² and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. ³ But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. ⁴ His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.” (Exodus 2 v 1-4)

A Levite woman gives birth to a son at a time when Hebrew baby boys are under threat. For three months, she has hidden him; can you imagine this?

Eventually, she can no longer keep him hidden.

There are times when we have to release what we treasure the most and trust God with the outcome. This was one of those times for Moses’ mother.

Maybe you have done all you can, and it was never going to be enough to control the outcome. Like this mother, you now find yourself placing your hope into an uncertain future. You might not know what tomorrow brings, but you serve one who does.

Interestingly, the Hebrew word for ‘basket’ here is the same as the one used for Noah’s ark. Jochebed (his mother) did all she could to prepare the basket for him, just as Noah had done in preparing the ark. She coated it with tar and pitch. That’s what she could do. What she couldn’t do was in the hands of God.

The sister of Moses (Miriam) was too young to do anything to help, but she is positioned for what lies ahead.

Where are you in this story?

You might be Jochebed, doing everything within your power, but you know you are now in God’s hands.

You might be Miriam, feeling too powerless to do anything meaningful, yet positioned by God for a role you can’t yet see.

You might be the baby, carried along by currents you can’t control, unaware of what is going to play out in the story God is writing for your life.

One thing is true: God is already downstream, writing the next part of your story.

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We are reading of a terrible evil. It’s not 2026 but it might have been. Evil is seen on our streets and terror all aacross the world.

But evil will be undone.

The enemy always fears what the oppressed might become.

“Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.” Exodus‬ ‭1‬:‭22‬

“… to all his people …”

An entire nation not only heard this but was conscripted into the Pharaoh’s cruelty.

The river became a grave as midwives became executioners and neighbours became informants.

The world was a mess.

Yet the edict reveals something. You don’t mobilise a nation to drown infants unless you believe those infants carry a future you cannot control.

Satan always fears what the oppressed might become.

Satan cannot u-turn the plans of God.

Moses would be born and we will read how he survives these waters. In fact he would do more than survive: he would one day part them.

Pharaoh intended the Nile to be a burial place but it became the place for Israel’s salvation.

A friend, now with the Lord, once preached, ‘ never overestimate the power of your enemy nor underestimate the power of God.’

The story will reveal this and more.

An appeal to get me up a hill in the middle of the night for a powerful cause.

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When you have a simple job description, will you do it, no matter what?

I wonder how many are going to work today and silently refuse to comply with their manager or leader? In the same way, I wonder how many comply because they have to but feel terrible in doing so. Wherever leadership exists, there is the possibility of coercive control intended to eliminate any autonomous choice.

This is the essence of Exodus 1.

“Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, ‘Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?’ The midwives answered Pharaoh, ‘Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.’ So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.” (Exodus 1:18-21)

Shiphrah and Puah had a simple job description: do what Pharaoh says. This wasn’t compliance at its best. This was survival. Every midwife in Egypt understood the arrangement. You served at the pleasure of the Pharaoh; defy him at your cost.

But in essence, Pharaoh was asking them to stop being midwives. Their job was to bring children into the world, not kill them. This was their vocation and their identity. Being obedient to Pharaoh meant no longer being the same people. The enemy of our lives still wants to do that: to take what is good in you, what you were made for, and turn it against itself.

But these two women refused.

Their identity as midwives was greater than bowing down to man’s authority. In fact, verse 21 reveals where their identity was rooted. They feared God. That settled loyalty to a higher authority meant Pharaoh’s command had a ceiling it could not break through.

God was kind to them. The women who had spent their lives delivering other people’s children were given children of their own. The blessing fit the obedience.

Shiphrah and Puah show us that faithfulness sometimes looks like simply refusing to be disloyal to your purpose.

There is always a path of least resistance. But it leads you where you cannot go if you want to hold on to your purpose.

An appeal to get me up a hill in the middle of the night for a powerful cause.

5 days to go – https://www.justgiving.com/page/paul-hudson-elim?utm_medium=FR&utm_source=EM

The Bible contains many powerful names who think they will be remembered long after they have died. However, the stories may be remembered, but as with this account, we still don’t know the name of this Pharaoh. But two midwives, on the other hand, we do know their names, etched into the Bible for millennia later.

Pharaoh’s command was clear and cruel, much like King Herod’s during Jesus’s lifetime. Kill the boys. It was to eliminate the threat before it grew. But two midwives had to make a choice, and they became heroines of the Bible.

“The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah” ¹⁶ “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” ¹⁷ The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.” (Exodus 1 v 15-17)

At a time when the Israelites were growing in number, Pharaoh sought to control them through fear and oppression. He ordered the midwives to kill every Hebrew baby boy at birth. But two of them, Shiphrah (whose name means beautiful) and Puah (whose name could mean brilliant), chose not to. They faced the decision of whether to obey an unjust command or honour what was simply the right thing to do.

God can use ordinary people who choose courage and righteousness, even when facing powerful opposition.

Have you noticed the Pharaoh, the most powerful man in Egypt, is not named, but the two midwives are.

These women may have seemed insignificant in the eyes of their world. Yet God always honours those who act with courage and faithfulness, even if those people are insignificant compared to others.

Shiphrah and Puah never led an army. But when the moment came, they chose God over Pharaoh. These two ladies simply did what was right, and three thousand years later, we are still saying their names.

You may feel like these two: small, overlooked, with nothing but your conscience and your God. But Scripture is clear that God sees those who fear him and act with courage. Go and do what’s right today.