How I believe Moses was prepared to lead in impossible situations

By Dean Collins

How do you lead when the odds are against you, the people are angry with you, the political power is against you, and you don’t think you have the skills to do the job? That was the challenge Moses was facing.

I’d love to hear the podcast interview with Moses about leading in difficult, if not impossible, circumstances! I suspect it would take a few episodes to cover the complexity of this leader. I started to say “unique leader,” but I’m not actually sure he is much different than the rest of us. Of course we are all unique in some ways, yet I suspect you have figured out that each of us has a common challenge with sin and few of us had a wholesome and perfect family of origin.

Each of us has a common challenge with sin, and few of us had a wholesome and perfect family of origin.

If we could ask Moses about the origins of his rescuing tendencies and his early self-confidence, we might be surprised with where he starts his story. We tend to begin our understanding of Moses with the burning bush and his lack of confidence in himself and his embarrassing public speaking aversion. But I suspect if you got Moses really to open up, he would first talk about the strong and courageous women of his childhood.

Obeying God

When Pharaoh became concerned about the rapid growth of the children of Israel, he quickly gave a command to the Hebrew midwives. It is fascinating to me that Exodus even records their names, Shiphrah and Puah. Pharaoh told them that if a boy is delivered, they should kill the child. (Baby girls were safe.) But these two strong and brave women feared God and did not obey Pharaoh.

The king heard that they had not obeyed and confronted them, but they claimed that Hebrew women are different from Egyptian and delivered their babies before the midwives even arrived to help. In this power struggle between Pharaoh and these two women, God intervened on behalf of the women because they feared and honored God more than the king.

Taking Risks

Three more strong women appear next in the Moses story. And each took great risk to save and care for Moses. The mother of Moses demonstrated the same kind of faith Abraham exhibited when he bound his son on Mount Moriah. Abraham put his faith in God, trusting God to intervene and save his son. The mother of Moses believed that God might save her baby when she released him to the Nile. She could not watch her baby die at the hands of the Egyptian murderers, and so she acted without knowing what would happen.

Then God used another woman, the very daughter of Pharaoh, to rescue the baby. Pharaoh’s daughter rebelled against her own father by saving baby Moses. Certainly she knew the evil in her father’s heart that would order the murder of all the Hebrew baby boys, yet she courageously saved and even raised Moses.

And the older sister of Moses took a risk, too. She was in the middle, offering to find a nurse for the baby and delivering Moses’s own mother to provide nourishment and love in those early months and years.

Three strong and courageous women formed a partnership that kept Moses alive. And while this teamwork kept Moses from death, can you imagine the impact of this unusual family structure in the life of Moses during his formative years? His rescuer tendencies were well honed, imitating the characteristics of the women who raised him.

Surrendering completely

When we place our lives in the hands of God, he will use all of our experiences and brokenness for his glory. Family structures are a part of our personality and character development. And while healthy structures are best, God can redeem and use us regardless of the dysfunctional upbringing we might have experienced. To see that result, we must offer all of ourselves to God.

This is one reason the church is so critical in helping us reclaim our identity. God uses wise and gifted mentors and spiritual guides to help mend our broken places. And it takes time for this healing to occur. Moses was 80 when he confronted Pharaoh, and God was still shaping the character and refining the talents of Moses even in the next forty wilderness years. But God’s development of Moses would not have happened had Moses not surrendered himself to God.

It should encourage us all that even when we struggle in our pursuit of God, he is big and loving enough to use and perfect us as we continue to surrender to his touch.

Maybe your current assignment isn’t a tough one, but if you find yourself in a situation of impossible odds with angry people wanting more than you have to give, and you feel inadequate to do the job, then you might just be on the brink of God transforming you into the leader he always knew you would become. So in this moment, thank him for the people who shaped you. Know that no matter the family structure you grew up in, God will waste nothing in his effort to make you whole and wholly his!

Your time with God’s Word
‭‭Exodus‬ ‭1:15-21‬; ‭‭Exodus‬ ‭2:2-10‬ ‭ESV‬‬

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Photo by Carlo Navarro on Unsplash