Exodus chapter 2

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.

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.

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.

This chapter covers a number of years and there is so much going on in it. The one thing that strikes me above all, though , is about having faith and trusting in God.

Firstly, Moses' mother. She can't do anything about Pharaoh and what he has decreed, but she can try and do the best she can for her son to ensure his safety. You would think that leaving a three month baby in a basket in the river would be sure to lead to the boy's death. But no, she trusts in God to protect her son, and he ends up being taken in by Pharaoh's daughter and the mother becomes the wet nurse. As a result of this, Moses grows up in the palace, having the best of everything, good clothes, fine wine, food, and the best education he possibly could.

And then Moses sees the Hebrews being mistreated and kills an Egyptian when he thinks no one is looking. Now the bible doesn't go into detail here, but I get the impression that Moses didn't kill the Egyptian whilst he was beating up a Hebrew but he waited until the Egyptian was alone. Otherwise, Moses would have known that at least one other person was watching him (the Hebrew who was being beaten up). Moses took matters into his own hands, thought he could save his fellow Hebrews by committing murder. He did not wait on God, trust in God for rescue, but took the action he thought appropriate.

But murder is wrong, and someone did see Moses. He did not act in the dark with no one else around, but someone saw what he did and it must have become common knowledge amongst the Hebrews. As a result, Moses had to flee to Midian to escape punishment from Pharaoh. Maybe if he had not committed murder, God would have used him in some other way. Maybe Moses needed the time in Midian to grow, to become the man that God could use in such a marvellous way. Who knows?

When Moses gets to Midian, he is able to use his superior fighting skills to rescue the seven daughters of Reuel from the shepherds, and so ends up becoming a member of Reuel's family.

Then the chapter ends with the Israelites groaning under the treatment of the Egyptians and crying out to God for help. And God looked down on them and remembered his covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and was concerned about them. Some 40 years have passed since Moses fled to Midian. The Israelites would have been crying out to God in each of those 40 years, probably everyday of each year, and yet only now does God act. Sometimes, it just seems unbelievable that God doesn't do something, we end up feeling so alone, as if no one cares and we are the one having to do everything, yet again. But God is there, just as he was there everyday of those 40 years with the Israelites. We may not feel his presence, we may feel totally abandoned, lost, alone, deprived. But God is there with us, He is crying with us, holding us, laughing with us, watching over us and nothing we do escapes his attention. He knows the number of the hairs on his head, and even we don't know that.

Like the Israelites, we just have to keep calling out to God, to trust in Him no matter what and to wait on His timing, not ours.