The woman in Andrew Wyeth’s painting lies in an empty field, gazing at a distant house, she longs to move forward but cannot take a step. Our lives can look like that too: stuck in a job, a relationship, grief, or addiction, with no way out in sight. This sermon takes us to Egypt, where an enslaved nation seems doomed to perish while God, behind the scenes, is preparing a rescue, a little boy in a basket on the waters of the Nile (Exodus 1-2). Listen and take hope that right where you are stuck, God is already at work.
Discussion questions
For your small group or for personal reflection after the sermon.
- In Exodus 2:1-10, what do Moses' mother, his sister and Pharaoh's daughter each do, and how does each of them contribute to saving the boy?
- How might the Israelites have felt under the king who did not know Joseph, and what did the name Moses, meaning drawn out of the water, mean for them?
- The speaker asks where God is at work in a basket set adrift on the Nile. How do you answer that question when you look at the whole story of Moses?
- The sermon mentions the divers in Thailand, Anthony, Martin Luther and the Mayflower pilgrims. What do these stories tell you about how God prepares His solutions long before a crisis?
- In what area of your life do you feel today like Christina in the painting, stuck halfway, and what makes it hardest for you to see hope?
- How can you remind yourself this week that God is working behind the scenes even when you cannot see or feel Him, and what small step of faith can you take?
