That four-letter “F” word, and why we should use it.
Then Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, gave this order to the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah: “When you help the Hebrew women give birth, watch as they deliver. If the baby is a boy, kill him; if it is a girl, let her live.” But because the midwives feared God, they refused to obey the king’s orders. — Exodus 1:15-17
Shiphrah and Puah didn’t disobey the king of Egypt because their political leader was morally, ethically, and tragically wrong. The duo didn’t refuse this all-powerful president…oops…I mean this all-powerful Pharaoh because they were afraid of what HE could do. The midwives flat out refused their chief’s command because they feared GOD.
For too many of us, fearing God isn’t cool anymore. It isn’t vogue. The current trend of having an all-friendly, “best bud” God IS good in that we can know a God who is love. There is a flipside danger to this, though. When the Creator of the heavens and the earth is adapted in our minds as a bit too chummy, we become the compass, not God. We become the all-knowing chief in charge.
Deciding what is right and what is wrong, we dole out punishments and actions, or we’d like to dole out punishments and actions.
I am not saying stay on the couch. I am not saying just holler at a newscast when you, like Shiphrah and Puah, see a grave injustice. You should act. You should respond.
But how do you act? How do you respond?
We’d have less anger and less angst in our nation and in our neighborhoods if we let God be God. We’d have less strife and stress in the streets if we gave God the job we’ve taken over and we returned it—yes, we returned it to where it belongs—in God’s hands.
This means you wouldn’t have control anymore. This means your armchair quarterback days would be over. And this makes some of you mad because you’re not ready to give up being boss.
You became boss in the first place because our permeating culture tells us each day here in the land of Uncle Sam that you are not supposed to be afraid. Adults don’t fear! That would be weakness!We are not wimps. We retaliate! We do not whine. We rally!
Here’s the truth. God is a better boss than you are.
The best way to let God be God is to know God. These midwives did just that. The result? They likely had a direct hand in seeing baby Moses find his way into a basket, and from a place of hell on earth—the killing of newborns—hope floated down the Nile in one little, fragile soul who one day liberated his people from slavery.
Liberate those you know of who are in bondage in some way. How? Start by fearing God, not Pharaohs.
PRAYER: Lord, you hear another four-letter ‘f’ word too often. I pray you start hearing this four-letter ‘F’ word again—fear.
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