Regret is such a heavy, suffocating burden to carry.
We reveal who we truly are in how we respond when the stakes feel high. In those moments, our actions scream truth louder than any spoken claim or image portrayed. Will we do the hard-right thing, even if it might come with a lofty cost, or will we choose that which feels convenient or safe?
I say feels, because I’ve discovered the opposite is often true. When we choose self-preservation above integrity, we begin to chip away at those things which are good and strong and admirable within while growing all that is ugly and false, until
one day we look back and wonder what we’ve done and who we’ve become.
Like I said earlier, regret is such a heavy, suffocating burden to carry.
Integrity When the Stakes Are High Click To TweetConsider Moses’s mother. (Exodus 2.) She lived during a horrific, terrifying, seemingly hopeless time in ancient Israel’s history. They’d been living in oppression and slavery for 400 years in Egypt. Fearing this emerging and rapidly growing people group would join forces with their allies, the Egyptians did all they could to beat them down. When this didn’t work, the Pharaoh “gave this order to all his people: ‘Throw every newborn boy into the Nile River.’”
A man named Moses was born during this dark time in history. Initially, his mom hid him for three months. This took such courage! Doing this placed her and her entire family in great danger. No doubt, if the authorities had discovered what she’d done, they’d make her and her family a public example of what happened to those who tried to defy the Pharaoh.
Three months is a long time to live in terror.
A long time when it would be easier to talk yourself out of doing the hard-right thing.
A long time to be praying and praying, seeming to get no answers or help from God.
A long, long time to hear the anguish all around you as other Hebrew boys were ripped from their mother’s arms to be drowned in the Nile.
But she remained courageous.
When it became impossible to keep the child hidden, she created a basket using reeds and, waterproofing it with tar, placed the baby inside, and brought him to the Nile River.
Can you imagine how long that walk to the river must have felt? The terror every step must’ve brought? One cry from the baby inside her basket would alert the Egyptian slave drivers to what she was doing. One peek into the basket, one question, “What do you have there?” could’ve resulted in her death, if not worse. Likely worse: again, to make an example of her to all the other Hebrew moms who might be tempted to courageously rescue their children as well.
Again, a long time to talk herself out of every courageous step. Was she really doing the right thing? What about the rest of her family? What if her actions harmed not just them, but all of her people, resulting in all the fathers’, the progenitors’, deaths as well? But she kept walking, and hid her beloved child in the reeds. She likely couldn’t fathom any way this child could be saved. But she knew she had to do something. She couldn’t simply sit back and allow his murder.
And then, the miracle happened.
Scripture tells us:
“Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. ‘This is one of the Hebrew babies,’ she said.
“Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, ‘Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?’
“‘Yes, go,’ she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, ‘Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.’ So the woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, ‘I drew him out of the water'” (Ex. 2:5-10, NIV).
Not only did God intervene and rescue her child, but He did so using someone from among her enemies: from within the Pharaoh’s household. Click To TweetAnd note, his daughter recognized he was a Hebrew boy. Logic says she would’ve been outraged and, following in her father’s steps, had him killed.
She wasn’t.
Instead, she rescued him and called for a Hebrew woman to nurse and care for the child until he was weaned. But not just any Hebrew woman. The child’s own mother.
While most of us, thankfully, won’t find ourselves in such dire, literally life-or-death, situations, we are living in dark times. We all have countless opportunities to do the hard-right thing. Our response reveals and builds who we are at our core. Click To Tweet
What hard right thing is God asking you to do this summer?
Share your thoughts, stories, and insights with us in the comments below, because we can all learn from and encourage each other!
Visit LifeAudio to hear more of Moses’s mother story and truths that can give you the courage to do the hard right thing HERE.
And make sure to grab a copy of our latest Bible study, Unshakable Unbreakable Joy. In it, you’ll learn, among other things, how to experience joy in all relationships. Find out more HERE. (You’ll be able to access each lesson’s video for free!)
Access it HERE.
God did not create us to live empty, discouraged, fearful, and defeated lives. He created us for joy. A joy greater than our most challenging and chaotic circumstances. Edited by Karen Greer, Rachel Vaughn, and LaShawn Montoya. Voice talent by Linda Goldfarb.
