Bibledoorajar: Staying in Faith Character

Josephus, the Jewish historian, tells us about the Pharoah of Moses' time. You know, the one who ordered all the male children to be thrown into the Nile. Josephus tells us he had only one daughter and that she had no children of her own. What a situation for God to use. He moved the daughter's heart to save Moses and bring him to the very palace where her father lived. And further, he moved the heart of Pharoah to allow him to be brought up in the wisdom of the Egyptians and to enjoy all the pleasures of royal living. Perhaps he thought that he could by his will bend the will of Moses to become an Egyptian through and through. But Pharoah did what many people do; he discounted God. For Pharoah allowed his daughter to bring in a Hebrew to care for the child and God saw that that Hebrew woman was Jochabed, Moses's faith driven mother. So now we have moved from throwing the baby back into the Nile, to rearing it in both Egyptian and Hebrew ways. Once again, God turns the wisdom of the ungodly into foolishness and defeats the ways of his arch enemy Satan. In his great sermon, Stephen says that Moses learned the Egyptian ways well and became very learned. Without other children Pharoah would surely offer him succession to the throne. But Stephen says that Moses's heart was somewhere else. It was with the people of God who were being held in bondage. He had faith to believe what his parents told him: that the time was coming near for the people of God to be delivered. Faith character loomed larger and larger in Moses. But one day, he fell out of character and without God ordained authority he killed an Egyptian who was mistreating a Hebrew. Here is the human character at work: "he quickly looked this way and that and saw that no one was looking..."
Moses fell for one of the biggest temptations of most of us--taking the situation out of God's hands and into our own. He tried to get rid of the evidence by burying the man. Later the next day, he tried to appeal to the better nature of two Hebrews who were in fisticuffs. What he got in response was a revelation that there were witnesses to his own sad behavior and thus he was not qualified to judge them. The response: fear. Run.
Perhaps staying in faith character is the hardest thing for a Christian. Our weak humanity prevails too often. Like Moses, we have a hard time waiting for God to act. I guess that is why patience is listed as a virtue in the Bible. It goes hand in hand with having a will to wait upon God. Moses was a good forty years ahead of God's deliverance plan and lost his faith to no avail. These things were written as an example for us. Jesus said if you must, turn the other cheek while you wait for God to prevail. That is true faith character at work and the challenge is to stay in character. The good news is God still went on to use Moses and He will still go on to use us in spite of our human failings. God is faithful, even when we cannot be.