Village Shepherd

This is a year for babies in our family. Nephews and nieces, sons and daughters are all producing offspring of their own, with all the attendant excitement that produces. Although we are already pretty sure of the sex of all these babies thanks to modern technology, apart from that we have no idea of how they will turn out. We don't know how big they will be, what they will look like, whether they will have hair or no hair, what their colouring will be, whether they will be placid or fractious. And we certainly don't know what sort of characters they will be or how they will grow up.

But at the moment, they are all absolutely perfect in every way and each of them has unlimited potential. They could all grow up to become perfect human beings in every way, although there is a very strong chance that they won't! Nonetheless, no matter what they know in their heads to be true, the parents and grandparents of these babies already believe in their hearts that they will become amazing people. And whatever happens in the lives of those babies as they grow up, in their hearts the parents and grandparents will go on believing that they are amazing people, because that's how human love works.

It's also how God's love works, although we tend to find that hard to believe. Because we know that we are far from being perfect people, we often have a tendency to believe that therefore God must reject us or be angry with us or want to punish us. But the truth is that we are the apple of God's eye and always will be, no matter what we do or say or think, because God loves us even more than our parents and grandparents.

God also sees our potential from the time before we are born. And God never loses sight of that potential. God goes on believing that we are amazing people and treating us as though we are, no matter how we fail.

When a male child was born to a Hebrew slave woman at a very dangerous time, God protected that child because God saw the potential in that baby and guided the baby towards his potential throughout his life. The time was dangerous because the Egyptian master-race had grown scared of the Hebrews. Despite their appalling living conditions, the Hebrews had multiplied and now outnumbered the Egyptians. In an effort at early and crude birth control, the Egyptian Pharaoh ordered that all the baby Hebrew boys should be massacred by being thrown into the Nile.

In a way Moses' mother obeyed the law, except that she made sure that her baby was as safe as he could be by fitting him securely into a waterproof basket and then gliding him gently down the river to the spot where Pharaoh's daughter was known to bathe. Perhaps Pharaoh's daughter was unable to have children of her own and was therefore more likely to be sympathetic to the sight of a baby in the bulrushes. Perhaps she thought that this particular baby was a gift from the gods.

At any rate, she picked up the baby and cuddled him and immediately began to love him. When the baby's sister Miriam dared to approach the princess offering to find a Hebrew wet nurse for the baby, the princess agreed although she must have realised that the nurse was none other than the baby's own mother.

The princess, then, was something of a rebel. She must have known about her father's decree, but she ignored it in order to save the life of one Hebrew baby. She may well have put her own life at risk by her actions.

It seems that God worked through the princess, even though she was not one of the Chosen Race and probably knew nothing of God. But she was the instrument not only of saving Moses' life, but of nurturing him and educating him and loving him to such a degree that he was able to realise his own full potential and in due course became the greatest leader the Hebrews had ever known.

This story of Moses in the bulrushes is a story of women. It's a story of women who put their own lives at risk for the sake of a baby boy, of women who were clever and resilient using their talents to achieve their ends, and of women who cared nothing for barriers of race, language, age, culture or social status. The princess, Miriam the young girl and Moses' mother all worked together to ensure that Moses lived and together ensured that he grew up to realise his full potential and to fulfill God's faith in him.

We seldom know what results our actions cause. But we should be aware that when we work to God's plan for us, we may be allowing and enabling other people to fulfill God's faith in them. Every time we respond to God's gentle nudges in our own lives, we may be enabling other people to realise their own full potential.

Three women risked their lives for Moses because they were responding to God's call, although they may not have known that. They may only have responded to their instincts.

Will you risk your life to respond to an instinct? Because if you do, you are almost certainly responding to God's call and who knows where that might lead?