Finding Compassion in Unexpected Places: God’s Providence

Who is the first person you run to when you’re in trouble? Most of us would say a parent, a sibling, or our best friend. That’s understandable. They’re the closest to us; they know us and are often on our side in times of trial. When they do help, we are grateful, but more often than not, we take their assistance for granted. I think about how many times I’ve called on my sister and brother-in-law for airport pick-ups, taking care of my boys when they were young, and other random requests for help.

We are expected to help those in our family, church, or circle of friends, but what happens when we receive help from the most unlikely people? What is our response when we are shown compassion from an enemy? If you were to look back over your life, could you recognize that God’s plan for saving you might include your enemies?

I want us to look at a few examples from Scripture that had me thinking about this topic. I trust they will help you to reflect on ways God may be teaching you through your own experiences of compassion from unlikely sources.

Abimelech saves Issac.

I use the word “save” loosely in these examples, but in many ways, the enemies of Israel did play a part in God’s plan to set apart a nation of his choosing, and Abimelech is one example of how God enabled his people to survive and even thrive. Abraham is now dead, and Isaac, the son of promise, is making his way in the land. Unfortunately, the land was not always fruitful, and as in his father’s time, famine threatens his own family and livestock. What did Isaac do?

He goes to Gerar, the area ruled by Abimelech, king of the Philistines, where he is allowed to stay. He could have gone down to Egypt like his father had, but the Lord didn’t want Isaac to leave the land. In the midst of enemy territory, God reaffirms his covenant with Isaac and promises that he will bless him if he chooses to stay in the land as an alien. With God’s voice still ringing in his ears, Isaac settles in Gerar for the duration of the famine.

Though he doesn’t imitate his father in leaving the land of promise, he does follow in his footsteps by claiming Rebekah to be his sister. Just as Abraham, he feared he would be killed and Rebekah taken, if he told them she was his wife. However, after some time, the king sees the couple in an embrace and sends for him.

“So she is really your wife! How could you say, ‘She is my sister’?”

Isaac answered him, “Because I thought I might die on account of her.”

Then Abimelech said, “What have you done to us? One of the people could easily have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us.” So Abimelech warned all the people, “Whoever harms this man or his wife will certainly be put to death.” (Genesis 26:9-11 CSB)

This king’s response is different from that of Pharaoh to Abraham. Pharaoh kicked Abraham out of the country, but Abimelech simply rebukes Isaac and warns his people to leave the couple alone. They are allowed to stay, and God blesses Isaac as time passes.

What does this story tell us? God can use even enemy territory as a place of refuge. He saved Isaac from the famine through the gracious hospitality of a pagan king.

Pharaoh’s daughter saves Moses.

The descendants of Isaac do end up in Egypt again, and even stay there for over four hundred years, enslaved by Pharaoh and struggling under the load of their work. But God had not forgotten his people. He was preparing to bring this growing multitude of his chosen people back out of that country to the land he had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but he needed a man uniquely gifted to accomplish the task.

Though his mother saw him as beautiful, I doubt she could have envisioned for her son the role he would play in God’s redemption of his people. All she wanted to do was to save him from certain death. As the child lay in a papyrus basket, God would use the daughter of the greatest enemy of the Hebrews to show compassion and save Moses from a perilous future.

Pharaoh’s daughter went down to bathe at the Nile while her servant girls walked along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds, sent her slave girl, took it, opened it, and saw him, the child—and there he was, a little boy, crying. She felt sorry for him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew boys.”

Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Should I go and call a Hebrew woman who is nursing to nurse the boy for you?”

“Go,” Pharaoh’s daughter told her. So the girl went and called the boy’s mother. Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.” So the woman took the boy and nursed him. When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.” (Exodus 2:5-10)

Though she immediately recognized that he was a Hebrew, Pharaoh’s daughter felt sorry for him. She paid for a Hebrew woman (actually his own mother) to nurse him, and then, in a surprise move, she took him into her own family as her son.

When we look back on the great life of Moses and his achievements for the sake of the Lord and his people, we must recognize the role of an Egyptian woman in God’s plan. Her compassion saved his life and would, in turn, save a nation.

Rahab saves the spies.

Most of us know the story of the fall of the walls at Jericho. This would be the first major incursion of God’s people in taking the Promised Land, and God was prepared to show his presence with his people and ability to defeat their enemies in supernatural ways. But the story starts with some reconnaissance work by a group of spies. They needed to get a first-hand account of what they were up against.

Who showed them compassion in enemy territory? A prostitute named Rahab. Why? We see it in Joshua’s account. After she’d hidden them from the king’s men, she spoke to them.

“I know that the Lord has given you this land and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and everyone who lives in the land is panicking because of you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings you completely destroyed across the Jordan. When we heard this, we lost heart, and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on earth below. (Joshua 2:8-11)

Even without newspapers, the news about this nation of former slaves had reached areas far and wide. Rahab recognized the power of the God of Israel, and she wanted to be on the winning side. She knew her own people were terrified and didn’t stand a chance, so not only did she take a huge risk in welcoming, hiding the spies, and helping them safely escape, but she also asked them to save her and her family when the inevitable happened.

Because of the compassion they’d been shown, the spies were happy to comply with Rahab’s request, and she would live among the Israelites the remainder of her days, and her faith would be noted in the book of Hebrews.

Jesus notes the importance of such compassion.

The people of Israel struggled to acknowledge God’s use of Gentile enemies for his purposes. They were supposed to be a blessing to the nations, but their hatred for anyone outside of their clans hindered their own compassion and outreach. By the time Jesus entered the earthly scene, Jews were firmly entrenched in their isolationist attitude, compounded by their hatred of Rome under the occupation.

With the Old Testament stories in mind and in this first-century environment, Jesus tells a parable. It relates to a question about eternal life, and Jesus uses his summation of the Ten Commandments once again to remind the man what God requires:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind,” and “your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27)

A further question to define what he means by “neighbor” results in the parable we know as the Good Samaritan. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the Jew who helped the injured man on the side of the road, but an enemy of Israel—a Samaritan. Jesus flipped the script once again on his hearers with this twist, reminding them that God can use anyone he pleases to accomplish his purposes in this world, even our enemies.

At the end of the story, Jesus asks the man: “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

“The one who showed mercy to him,” he said.

Then Jesus told him, “Go and do the same.” (Luke 10:36-37)

Just because we are God’s children doesn’t mean we don’t sometimes end up in a ditch. You may be in one right now. God’s plan for saving your life may include one of your enemies. Will you accept help? Can you acknowledge God’s grace even from the most unlikely of sources?

Help us, Lord, to be people of mercy to others and to accept the same with grace and thanks, no matter who offers it to us.

Grace and Peace

If you missed the last Wednesday Wisdom, click HERE, or check out these other posts about his return: Learning from the Past: Thirty-Five, The Nations, Learning from the Past: Forty-Eight, Rejoicing and Mourning, and Relief.