Obedience with a heap of creativity

And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive. (Exodus 1:22)

1 And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.

2 And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.

3 And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.

4 And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him. (Exodus 2:1-4)

Something I noticed recently about this story is that Moses’s mother was technically obedient to Pharaoh’s murderous decree, but stretched it in a number of different ways.

She kept Moses for three months instead of putting him in the river immediately after birth. She did put him in the river, but she put him in his own little boat first. Yes, she put him in the river, but she also put him at the river’s brink, at the very edge, rather than shoving him out into the middle. In short, she was very creative in her obedience to an unjust command.

Have you ever had a time when you’ve resorted to “creative obedience” to something you felt was wrong?