God has a Plan

Hello everyone.

I have started a new study of the book of Exodus, I will share some thoughts with you from that study.  You are probably pretty familiar with Moses' story.  Pharaoh, out of fear, wanted all male Israelite children killed at birth. Moses' parents, Amram and Jochebed, hid their newborn baby for three months.  However, hiding babies is not easy, as they do not always cooperate.  They reached a point where they simply could not hide him any longer.  So they made a plan. They a basket out papyrus, tar and pitch, placed the baby in it and set it among the reeds in the Nile River. (Ex. 2:3)  We are all so familiar with this story that we don't really stop to think about how odd this plan really is.  They were going to save their baby's life by placing him in a basket and putting it in the river.  Then what?  Fortunately, the daughter of the Pharaoh came by and saw the basket and retrieved it.  When she saw that it was a baby she had compassion on it and adopted it. 

Now, if that was their plan all along, that Pharaoh's would come along, see the basket, open it, have compassion of their child and adopt it, I would have to commend them on their incredible foresight and wisdom.  There is a lot that could go wrong with such a plan.  What if Pharaoh's daughter doesn't come along?  What if she doesn't see the basket floating among the reeds? The plan works around her having compassion for the baby.  What if she doesn't?  According to the law her father had established, she was supposed to have this baby killed.  She recognized immediately that this was a Hebrew baby.  (Ex. 2:6)  So I would think that her father would recognize it immediately also.  Neither of them obeyed this law in Moses' case.  In spite of all that could go wrong, the plan worked.  In fact, it worked better than one could reasonably expect, as in the end Jochebed got paid to nurse her own son, something she would gladly do for free. 

Again, if this was how Amram and Jochebed thought this would work out, one has to be amazed at their wisdom.  No, clearly this was a plan that originated with God.  So did God tell them to do this. Were they guided by the Holy Spirit to do this?  Did God just take a plan with a lot of holes in it and just make it work out?  Who knows?  What we do know is that it worked.  Without a doubt, God had worked this plan, but I think that the plan was about more than saving just one baby.  This baby would grow up the lead the nation out of bondage and having this child grow up in the Pharaoh's household was part of the master plan. One never knows how God will work.  If Pharaoh had not desired to kill all of the baby boys, there would have been no need to place Moses in the basket on the Nile.  Moses would have grown up to be just another of Egypt's many slaves, and may not have received the training he needed to lead God's people. 

God has a way of taking the bad things and working it out for the ultimate good of his people. It is a good lesson for us.  Even in the midst of great difficulties, God is always at work.  We can believe scriptures like Jer. 29:11 and Rom. 8:28, no matter how dire the situation. There is a plan and even when, at first glance it doesn't make any sense, it will be a good one.
Tom