S173P4 – Opportunities taken: a chance at life

Exo. 2:5-6

Then the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river.  And her maidens walked along the riverside; and when she saw the ark among the reeds, she sent her maid to get it.  And when she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby wept.  So she had compassion on him, and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.”

Three women each made a decision that would give a child the chance to live and eventually deliver his people.  First, his mother defied a deadly decree and hid him for three months before setting him adrift down the river, hoping for a fate better than death.  Then, the daughter of the ruler who enacted that decree saw the child and, captivated by his beauty, devised a way to keep him even though he was Hebrew.  Last, the child’s sister intervened to make sure that his own mother would be the one to raise him until his formal adoption into Pharaoh’s house.  Each saw an opportunity to save a life, but none knew the life it would become.

These three women had opportunities to help Moses along, and they took them.  I have never been saved from death like this, but I have experienced parallels in my life.  In low times and dark times, I have encountered people who had the opportunity to speak life into my circumstances.  Each person who gave an encouraging word or changed my viewpoint from hopelessness to hope, did the same for me as these three women did for Moses.  In those times, I might have been alive on the outside, but I felt dead on the inside.  It would take someone noticing the state I was in and deciding to do something to lift me out of it.  I owe many successes to those who thought I was worth that work.

Moses was tiny and helpless, and he needed a hand if he was going to survive and become the great man of God he was destined to be.  There are many people in the world today who are spiritually on the verge of death, and they need a hand to survive.  God will present us with opportunities to give them a chance at life, and I hope that we notice and act, because we never know the lives we will impact.  There is death around us, but we have the opportunity to speak life over that death.  Let us seek God for the chance to do that and the wisdom to take that chance.  Father, lead us to those who need a hand or a word, to those who are dying, and give us what we need to bring them life.