Exodus 2: 15-22 - When Pharaoh heard about what had happened, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses escaped from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian. There he sat down by a well. A priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to fill the stone tubs with water. They wanted to give water to their father’s flock. Some shepherds came along and chased the girls away. But Moses got up and helped them. Then he gave water to their flock. The girls returned to their father Reuel. He asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?” They answered, “An Egyptian saved us from the shepherds. He even got water for us and gave it to the flock.” “Where is he?” Reuel asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.” Moses agreed to stay with the man. And the man gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses to be his wife. Zipporah had a son by him. Moses named him Gershom. That’s because Moses said, “I’m an outsider in a strange land.” (NIrV)
Devotional Series: Moses - The Friend of God!
Moses was on the run. But this did not stop him from being kind and doing good to others. When things go wrong for us, more often than not we tend to coil into our shell. Our mindset becomes I am just going to stay in my lane. I don’t need or want any more trouble. I need to keep my head down and focus on surviving this period. But in Moses, we see something different. He did not say to himself, the last time I helped someone it ended terribly. Instead, he stepped in and helped Laban’s daughters. He did not know that by providing that help he was ushering himself into a new life and with a new family.
This passage reminds us that when we retreat from others, contrary to what we might think, we are not preserving ourselves rather we may actually be inadvertently harming ourselves by stifling a solution to our problem.