Underestimated

When God Uses the Underestimated: Lessons from Egypt's Unlikely Heroes

Have you ever felt overlooked? Dismissed? Underestimated?

Maybe it was a teacher who doubted your potential, a boss who passed you over for promotion, or a family member who never quite believed you had what it takes. That sting of being undervalued is one most of us know too well.

But here's a truth that changes everything: God specializes in using unlikely people to accomplish extraordinary things.

The Power Struggle Nobody Saw Coming
The story begins in ancient Egypt, where a new dynasty had taken power—one that knew nothing of Joseph's legacy or how the Hebrew people had once saved Egypt from famine. What they did see was a rapidly growing population of foreigners who made them nervous.
"They're becoming too numerous," Pharaoh worried. "If war breaks out, they might join our enemies."

So Pharaoh implemented Plan A: brutal oppression. He demoted the Hebrews to the lowest class, forcing them into backbreaking labor making bricks and working fields. His twisted logic? Work them so hard they'll be too exhausted to have children.

But something unexpected happened. Despite the crushing circumstances, the Hebrew population exploded. God blessed them with fertility that defied their oppression. Plan A had failed spectacularly.

The Midwives Who Changed History
Enter two women whose names we know—Shiphrah and Puah—while Pharaoh's name is conspicuously absent from the biblical record. Isn't that interesting? The powerful ruler is nameless, but these two midwives are remembered by name thousands of years later.

Pharaoh called them in for a private meeting and issued a horrifying command: "When you help Hebrew women give birth, if it's a boy, kill him. If it's a girl, let her live."

He wasn't worried about the girls. In his patriarchal worldview, only the boys mattered—they would become soldiers, threats to Egyptian power. The girls? Irrelevant. This was Pharaoh's fatal mistake: he consistently underestimated the women.

Shiphrah and Puah faced an impossible choice. Obey Pharaoh and commit murder, or defy the most powerful man in Egypt and face potential execution themselves. They chose a third option: fear God more than people.

When Pharaoh demanded to know why Hebrew boys kept being born, the midwives offered a creative explanation: "Hebrew women are so vigorous they give birth before we even arrive!"

Scripture tells us God was kind to these midwives. He blessed them with families of their own. Their civil disobedience—the first recorded in Scripture—became a cornerstone of God's redemptive plan.

The lesson? Fear God more than people, no matter how powerful those people seem.

A Mother's Desperate Plan
Plan B thwarted, Pharaoh escalated to Plan C: a public decree ordering every Hebrew boy thrown into the Nile River.

This is where we meet Jochebed, a Levite woman who gave birth to a son and recognized immediately that this child was special. For three months, she hid him—no small feat with a newborn. But eventually, hiding became impossible. So she devised a plan.

She took a papyrus basket, waterproofed it with tar and pitch (the Hebrew word is the same used for Noah's ark), and placed her baby inside. But this wasn't a desperate act of abandonment—it was strategic. She didn't push the basket out into the current to drift away. She placed it carefully among the reeds in shallow water. And she positioned her daughter Miriam nearby to watch.

Jochebed had done her homework. She knew Pharaoh's daughter bathed at that location. She knew the timing. She had a plan.

Here's the balance we all need: Execute the plan AND trust God with the results.

We can't just "let go and let God" without taking action. Noah had to build the ark. Daniel had to propose his dietary experiment. The midwives had to make choices. But neither can we control outcomes through our own strength alone.

Jochebed did what she could, then released her son into God's hands.

The Princess Who Saved the Deliverer
Right on schedule, Pharaoh's daughter arrived at the river. She spotted the basket, heard the baby crying, and her heart melted with compassion.

"This is one of the Hebrew babies," she said, fully aware of her father's decree.

Then young Miriam made her move. "Shall I get a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby for you?" she offered innocently.

"Yes, go," Pharaoh's daughter replied.

Miriam ran to get Jochebed—the baby's own mother. And here's the beautiful irony: Pharaoh's daughter told Jochebed, "Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you."

The very government that wanted all Hebrew boys dead was now paying to keep one alive—the one God had destined to become Israel's deliverer. The baby's name? Moses. The one who would eventually lead God's people out of Egyptian bondage.

When God Uses Unlikely People
Pharaoh's daughter probably wasn't a believer in the one true God. She was likely a polytheistic Egyptian. Yet God used her compassion to rescue His chosen deliverer. God can work through anyone—even people who don't fully know Him yet.

This pattern repeats throughout Scripture. God used foreign king Cyrus to send the exiles back to Israel. He used a pagan sailor to transport Jonah. He used Roman infrastructure to spread the gospel.

Don't underestimate the people around you. Pray for God to work through them—your coworkers, neighbors, family members, even political leaders you disagree with. God's ability to work isn't limited by someone's current spiritual state.

The Pattern of Babies
When God wants to accomplish something mighty, He often starts with a baby.

Isaac, born to elderly Abraham and Sarah. Joseph, born to heartbroken Rachel. Samuel, born to barren Hannah. John the Baptist, born to aged Elizabeth. And ultimately, Jesus—born to peasant teenagers in an obscure village, laid in a feeding trough because there was no room anywhere else.

The world overlooks babies. They seem weak, vulnerable, irrelevant to power structures and political machinations. But God sees differently.

What Does This Mean for You?
If you've ever felt underestimated, take heart. You're in good company. God has always specialized in using people the world overlooks—women in patriarchal societies, slaves in empire, shepherds, fishermen, tax collectors.

The question isn't whether you're qualified by worldly standards. The question is whether you'll trust God enough to execute whatever plan He's placed before you.

What basket do you need to waterproof today? What baby step of faith is God asking you to take? What impossible situation needs both your action and His intervention?

Don't underestimate what God can do through you. Don't underestimate what He can do through the unlikely people around you. And whatever you do, don't underestimate God Himself.

He's the God who turns oppression into multiplication, who gives midwives the courage to defy kings, who uses a mother's love and a princess's compassion to save a nation's deliverer.

That same God is at work today—often in ways we can't see, through people we'd never expect, accomplishing purposes beyond our imagination.

The mighty Pharaoh is forgotten. But Shiphrah, Puah, Jochebed, and Miriam? Their faith echoes through millennia.

Never underestimate what God can do through unlikely people.

You might just be one of them.