An important part of what Christians and Jews believe is that God created this world and everything in it Good, and deserving of Good things, and for the purpose of goodness. Some people throughout history have had special connections with God that let them realize this and share with people God’s hope that we can all live together with more peace and fairness and justice and faith and love in the world. These people, called prophets, shared good rules to live by, good wisdom about how we can help with God’s hope for the world.

The problem is that people, including us, don’t always live in a good way, and can turn away from God and treat each other badly. When this happens, one of the ways God works in the world is inside us as a voice or an urge that says, “Hey, what’s happening is wrong, you can do something to try to help make things right.” That’s a special voice inside us, that can choose to listen to, or choose to ignore, but it is very important. The big word for it is the voice of “conscience.” This means “to know what is right and wrong.”

The Bible is full of stories of people who heard God speaking through their feeling that what is happening is wrong and that they should do somethings to bring more goodness and love and faith in the world. Sometimes this means we rely on God when we realize that we’ve messed up and hurt someone, God can help us remember what’s right, remember we are loved, remember everyone else deserves love, and this helps us apologize and receive forgiveness and try to do better next time.

Sometimes listening to the voice of conscience means people rely on God to help them be brave to do the right thing when there is a big problem that is hurting a lot of people.

That’s the story we just heard from the Bible, from the Book of Exodus in the Bible (Exodus, chapters 1-2, from “The Book of Belonging: Bible Stories for Kind and Contemplative Kids” by Mariko Clark). Long, long ago, the Hebrew people, the ancestors of Jewish people and ancestors of Jesus, were living as foreigners in Egypt. The Egyptian king, called Pharaoh, mistreated them and forced them to work without being paid, and took away their freedom. Pharaoh got so horribly mean that he was threatening Hebrew babies. But God worked through a group of women who were very brave and helped protect the babies. One of the babies they helped protect was Moses and grew up to be a very important prophet, who experienced God in a very powerful way and knew that God is within him as he worked hard to help his people to become free.  

My question to you is:

Are there ways you have done the right thing, even when it is hard. How have you experienced God’s help in this, how have you heard the voice of conscience, in helping you have courage to do the right thing, even if it is hard? Or are there ways that you would need that right now, would like that right now?