It’s been a long time since I walked the halls of the Junior High School as a student, but I can still remember some of the struggles of growing up, of being halfway between a kid and an adult. That’s been fifty years ago. Today, the challenges faced by students seem much greater.
Society teaches the thirteen-year-old that homosexuality is normal, that it’s a choice. It’s okay to be attracted to someone of the same gender. Sex before marriage, that’s okay. Climb on the bandwagon. Everybody’s doin’ it! Speaking of genders and sexual identity, the young teenager is told, if you don’t like who God made you, switch! Change! Gender-transformation has been normalized. If that’s not your cup of tea, then end it all. Teen-age suicide is at an all-time high. And how about racial tensions? Are we any better today that we were in the days of Martin Luther King? Hatred, division, brokenness, confusion... Life is hard. 2022 is a dangerous time to grow up.
Moses was born during dark and difficult days too. Amram, Moses’s daddy, worked long hours in back-breaking forced labor. Egyptian slavedrivers whipped or beat the Israelite workers to increase production. Most evenings, Amram returned to their modest dwelling with bleeding wounds on his weary back.
Jochebed, Moses’s momma, probably didn’t have much in common with Beaver Cleaver’s mom. She didn’t wear high-heels and a long skirt, and she didn’t stay at home baking cookies. She either worked in the fields from sun-up to sun-down or served an abusive Egyptian taskmaster cleaning and polishing an opulent Egyptian home.
When Moses was born, the law emphatically demanded euthanization of all Hebrew baby boys. Like a horse with a broken leg or a blind, old dog, Hebrew baby boys were to be put-down. Amram and Jochebed were pro-life! They determined to break the law, to defy the Pharoah’s immoral edicts. To do so put their own lives in jeopardy, but to follow God’s law was more important to them than their safety and wellbeing. They secretly kept the infant hidden until he was three months old. I remember when my kids were three months old. Everything was tiny except the racket they could make. Their cries could be mistaken for a tornado siren! The neighbors could surely hear!
Where was God during those difficult days? “God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the Israelites, and God knew” (Exodus 2:24–25). As a matter of fact, God had known for centuries! Hundreds of years earlier, the Lord had promised Abraham, their ancient ancestor, “Know this for certain: Your offspring will be resident aliens for four hundred years in a land that does not belong to them and will be enslaved and oppressed” (Genesis 15:13).
At three-months-of-age, Moses was set afloat on the mighty Nile River in a tiny basket. Amram and Jochebed prayed for God’s mercy. They begged God for a miracle. As you know, God answered!
Please church, pray for young families, for parents, and for students. These are challenging times. God is near. He knows. He hears the groanings of His people.
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