Have you ever been in a room where something wrong was happening, and you said nothing?
Maybe the joke in the group chat turned cruel. Maybe a manager asked you to round a number the wrong way. Maybe a rumour started at the school gate and you just looked at your shoes.
Most of us carry a small ache from moments like that. And here’s what the ache does to us over time: it convinces us we’re not brave. Because we picture courage as something loud. A speech. A stand. A moment. We’ve never had that moment, so we quietly file ourselves under “not the courageous type”.
I want to whisper a different idea to you.
In Exodus 1, a frightened king orders two midwives to kill the Hebrew baby boys. Their names are Shiphrah and Puah. Scripture says, “But because the midwives feared God, they refused to obey the king’s orders. They allowed the boys to live” (Exodus 1:17, NLT).
Notice what isn’t there. No protest. No march. No confrontation in the palace. They simply do not do it. Day after day, in ordinary rooms, they keep choosing life.
Three things worth holding onto.
Their courage was a refusal, not a performance. They announced nothing. The bravest thing you do this week may be something nobody ever sees.
Their fear pointed the right way. They feared God, which doesn’t mean they were terrified of him. It means his opinion mattered more than Pharaoh’s. When you know whose you are, you stop being easily bought.
They weren’t powerful, and it didn’t matter. Two working women. No status, no protection, no allies. Yet Moses only reaches his first birthday because these two women quietly said no.
I think of the nurse who stays past her shift because a frightened patient needs a hand held. The shop worker who owns up to a mistake nobody would have spotted. The teenager who moves seats to sit beside the lad no one talks to. Nobody films it. Nobody claps. But something changes, and heaven leans in.
Proverbs warns us not to excuse ourselves by saying we didn’t know, “for God understands all hearts, and he sees you” (Proverbs 24:12, NLT). He sees you. Not the polished version. The real one, in the ordinary room, making the small right choice.
One step for today. Think of one place this week where something isn’t quite right. The unkind thread. The unfair shortcut. The person left out. You don’t have to make a speech. You simply have to not join in, and speak a word where it’s needed.
And please hear this. You don’t do it to become someone God loves. You already are that person. This isn’t about doing more. It’s about living out who you already are in Christ.
Where do you need the courage to quietly say no this week?
👉 Watch today’s 5-minute devotional here: