May the Faith Be With You

Introduction

May 4th is a day in which fans of the cinematic series Star Wars celebrate in which you may see a re-screening of some of their most heralded films. A phrase May the Force Be With You, has been said 24 times in live action films of this series. Today, seeing that is May 4th, I bid the May the Faith Be With You!

A universal term that we use on a consistent basis is faith. What we trust, what we believe in, what we hold on to. Faith gives hope when it seems like we have no hope left. When a loved one travels we have faith in the fact that they make it to and from their destination safely. Parents will college age children we have faith that our children will be safe and make smart decisions while they are away from our daily supervision. We have faith that our job will provide income in return for our hard work. We have faith that God will heal our bodies when we are sick. We have faith in the safety of God that when we sleep at night we will remain safe and our belongings will be secure. Faith is all around us, no matter the issue.

In the book of Exodus, we are introduced to a liberating faith, a faith that God would save an enslaved nation of people from the bondage of Egypt. Faith that God would protect them when resources were limited and the future was bleak. I believe we have all been in that type of situation, a situation where seeing the light at the end of the tunnel seems far-fetched. Some of us might be in that situation right now, a situation where things seems dark and bleak, and nothing seems to go the way we wanted it go. Finding peace in those situations begins and ends with our faith in God.

It’s quite ironic that sometimes the household chosen to hold the banner of priestly responsibility can also be home to the most traumatic situations that desire the most faith. In the beginning of Exodus we are introduced to a new era of Egyptian leadership that didn’t know Joseph and decided to deal harshly with them. According to Exodus 1:8–10 “Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land.”” If there was a time to exercise faith it was in this moment. The children of Israel was subject to oppression and during these times of horrific conditions faith has to be the priority. Faith that no matter the circumstance God is still going to preserve, protect and, provide for us even in the worst circumstances.

Faith Preserves

Exodus 2:1–2 “And a man of the house of Levi went and took as wife a daughter of Levi. So the woman conceived and bore a son. And when she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him three months.”

Faith preserves the things that God has gifted us. Everyone isn’t happy about the gifts from God. When people see your gift as a threat they will do anything to try to destroy it and sometimes you have to preserve it by hiding it.

God’s power is even greater than our ability. Yes, Moses’ mother did everything she could to preserve her child, but God was working on the backend. This preservation began with the relationship that the midwives had with God.

Exodus 1:17–19 “But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and saved the male children alive?” And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them.””

Faith pushes us to just do what we can. You aren’t going to be able to control everything but just know the power of God expands past our ability as well.

Our obedience to God provides space for God to use people to work on our behalf. Faith says you don’t have to control everything, you have to trust that even the things you don’t see, God is using to work in your favor.

Preservation only last so long, eventually you have to build protections around your children so that when you have to let them God they are protected by the things that you have built.

What does the ark of protection that you’ve build look like for your children?

How are you protecting the gifts that God has provided for you.

Faith Protects

In life we have to set certain protection mechanisms around us and for those of us who have children we have to find ways to build tools of protection because eventually we will have to let them go.

When it comes to the protection of faith you can’t leave yourself or your family vulnerable by getting frustrated at the expense of what you do not have. You have to protect yourself and your family with what God has provided for you.

2 Corinthians 9:8 “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.”

When she could no longer hide him, she had to rely on what she had to protect Moses. The bulrushes or papyrus was right there along the river. What we need is right here we just have to use it properly. The Egyptian government saw this a means to textile dominance but that same plant was used to protect the child that God was going to use to liberate His people. We never know how faith is going to workout in our favor.

Sometimes faith gives a loophole, Pharaoh commanded that they be cast into the river, but he didn’t say how. Exodus 1:22 “So Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Every son who is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.”” Sometimes you don’t have the control to where you put your children, but you can’t build a mechanism of faith around them that they are protected no matter where they are.

The protections of faith need to be impermeable. It wasn’t just placing him in the ark of bulrushes it was also daubed with asphalt and pitch. This made it water proof! Faith protects us from the elements that could kill us. Faith is a defense mechanism that keeps us afloat when life wants to take us under.

Faith Provides

Men may come up with all sorts of schemes to destroy what God has created, but God had a plan with women. It was women that preserved the life and deliverance of Moses. God has always used women in His plan of deliverance. He used the midwives to keep from killing babies at birth, and when the midwife was compromises God used a woman by the name of Jochebed to preserve and protect her son by hiding him and building an ark of protection around him. Then when momma couldn’t look after him any more, God empowered his sister, to look after him, and the sister could no longer look after him he placed the Pharaoh’s daughter in that river to bathe and have compassion on the baby boy. Even when it’s out of our sight, God is still working on our behalf.

A woman bore a special child

A mother places him carefully in a basket with no food, but God still provides.

His sister stations herself in a position to look after her brother!

Faith provides even when I don’t have the power to provide on my own.

We need some sisters that’s going to preserve some stuff, that they world is trying to destroy. We need some sisters to build some protections around us that cannot be permeating by the waters of evil that would drown us. We need some sisters to station themselves on the banks of our life to look after us. Sometimes our deliverance might come from the places we least expect it like the Pharaoh’s daughter.

Even the things you have to let go in faith God will return back to you in effort to steward them accordingly! His sister brings him back to his mother, because of the protective, providing, and preserving faith of his mother she’s able to nurture him from a place of safety and threat!

Faith and fear cannot co-exist. Even when I can’t see the outcome I have to know that God is going to provide for me.

It might not be children, but there’s some things you are going to have to have faith about even when you don’t see the outcome. When it returns you need to be ready to nurture it properly because it might not be in your care forever.

Faith is a reflection of the power of God, that even when it doesn’t look like it’s going to work out, God still preserves, God still protects, God still provides. Faith says even when the enemy is threatening you still have faith to trust God.

Hebrews 11:23 “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s command.”

Faith will provide abundance and them some!