1438 When It’s Not Fair

It’s not if you’re going through hard times, honey, it’s HOW you’re going through hard times. Will you worry your way through this? Will you be a ball of anxiety, overwhelmed in the emotions of a tough situation? Will you become bitter, hardened, jaded and cynical? Or will you stand strong in your faith and trust God to guide you right through this? What you don’t see while you’re going through the hardship, is the blessing on the other side. It won’t be meaningless. It won’t all be for nothing. There’s a special provision aligned for you when you decide you’re going to face this with the courage and strength God gives you. Within your Bible is a story about 2 women named Shiphrah and Puah. Do you know their story? Who are they? What did they do, and why are they so important that their names would be included in God’s word? These women were midwives to the Hebrew women and their babies. In their culture, to be a midwife typically meant you were single and barren. They didn’t have families of their own. There was a brokenness and longing within them to have what they were watching others have all day long. It was their hands that delivered blessings to other women, but these were blessings they couldn’t have for themselves. Do you ever feel that way? Like everyone else has what you are left only wanting? Like life has been so unfair to you while you have tried to remain faithful? Gosh, life isn’t always fair. Things happen we don’t understand. I can’t tell you why, or make you feel any better about what you may be longing for and still not have, but I can share the story of Shiprah and Puah, two women who were longing for what they still didn’t have, yet they remained faithful in a bad situation and God rewarded them. Is there a reward for you in this bad situation? Think about that. What if God is aligning a blessing for you when you go through this with the courage and strength he gives you. What if it really will be worth it? And what if you’re about to give up on it all before you see it unfold? Shiphrah and Puah were Hebrew midwives living under the oppression of the Egyptians. Egypt had taken the Hebrews captive, making them their slaves, yet their people continued to increase and flourish. Fearing their rise in strength and power, Pharaoh, the King of Egypt, decided to cut them off at their source. He would kill all their baby boys. If the next generation were only girls, he would stop their increase, break their spirit, and completely defeat them. Exodus 1: 15-21, “The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?” The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.” So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.” Were the Hebrew women really supernaturally strong with their Pilates and shooting baby boys out so fast the midwives couldn’t even catch them? No, of course not. Could these two midwives who were barren and single and carrying the weight of their own sadness and hardship have been killed for what they did to protect the baby boys? Absolutely! It would have been easy for them to be bitter. Afterall, they didn’t have babies of their own. Why should they risk their lives for women who were being blessed with what they couldn’t have themselves. But here’s what they didn’t know in the middle of their terrible circumstances … blessings were