FamilyLife is offering you a FREE DEVOTIONAL video series based on my 5-week interview with them. It’s called Unseen.
Life can feel lonely and overwhelming. Still, your life is both seen and cherished. God is working fiercely behind the scenes of your life. He worked to bring astonishing triumphs to the lives of four historical characters who faced devastating, alienating, and even life-threatening situations. Friend, God is working!
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Pharaoh’s fatal law must have arrived sometime after the birth of Aaron since he was alive and didn’t appear to be in danger of the edict. Unfortunately for Jochebed, her third pregnancy collided with the crisis of the decree. The king’s war against a nation found its target in her womb. But this mother would remember God’s former work of salvation.
Thoughts of pregnancy must have consumed Rachel. Each month brought a fresh hope and then the bloody reality of her emptiness. I can’t help but remember God’s poem to Woman: “In pain you shall bring forth children.” The pain of Genesis 3:16 includes infertility as much as it does labor contractions. The effects of the Fall are here—but so is God’s mercy.
Leah was a third wheel in her own household. Her husband slept with her but didn’t honor her with love. What tears those weak eyes must have shed! Jacob didn’t regard her—but God saw her. The giver of life enabled her to bear six sons and at least one daughter, Dinah (Gen. 30:19-21). The names of her sons are telling. They testify to her hope and her great suffering.
As I write, some 3,400 persons have died from the outbreak – leaving families in dismay and children orphaned and stigmatized. Worse still, the virus continues to spread uncontained. The CDC estimates 1.4 million Ebola cases by the end of January! They see no end to the outbreak at present.
Today, I remember the Good Shepherd in light of the persecuted church. As I write, thousands of Iraqi Christians are displaced; threatened by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants to either abandon home, convert to Islam, or face death. Many roam today as refugees in Mosul without the promise of food or shelter.
In Northern Nigeria, the Islamic militant group, Boko Haram, continues to bomb churches, murder Christians and abduct girls for forced marriages. Christians there are living under the constant threat of death – they are indeed sheep trailing through the valley of the shadow of death!
