Exodus 18:1-6: a reflection

1Now Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel his people, how the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt. 2Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, received Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her away, 3and her two sons. The name of one son was Gershom, for Moses said, “I have lived as a foreigner in a foreign land”. 4The name of the other was Eliezer, for he said, “My father’s God was my help and delivered me from Pharaoh’s sword.” 5Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came with Moses’ sons and his wife to Moses into the wilderness where he was encamped, at the Mountain of God. 6He said to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, have come to you with your wife, and her two sons with her.”

When Jethro brings Moses' family to him in the wilderness, we learn the names Moses had given his two sons, and the names are little testimonies. The first he called Gershom, saying, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land. The second he called Eliezer, meaning my God is my help, for, he said, the God of my father was my help and delivered me from Pharaoh's sword.

Notice what Moses did with his children's names. He wrote his own story with God into them. One name remembers the long, hard years as a stranger far from home; the other remembers that God helped him and rescued him. Every time he called his sons, he was rehearsing the truth: I have been a sojourner, and my God has been my help. The memory of God's deliverance was built right into his family.

There is something worth imitating in that, even if not literally in names. Moses found ways to keep God's help woven into daily life, unavoidable, spoken aloud, remembered in the ordinary. We forget so easily what God has done. What would it look like to build the memory of his help into the fabric of your days, in what you name, mark, tell, and repeat, so that his deliverance is not forgotten but rehearsed? Eliezer: my God is my help. Make that a name you keep saying.

Lord, like Moses I want to weave the memory of your help into my daily life. You have been my help; you have delivered me. Keep me from forgetting, and let my life keep rehearsing the truth that my God is my help.