Acts 7:1, 17-29And the high priest said, “Are these things so?” 2 And Stephen said:
17 “But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt 18 until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. 19 He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants, so that they would not be kept alive. 20 At this time Moses was born; and he was beautiful in God’s sight. And he was brought up for three months in his father’s house, 21 and when he was exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. 22 And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds.
23 “When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. 24 And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. 25 He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. 26 And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?’ 27 But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29 At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
A Jewish rabbi by the name of Harold Kushner wrote a book in 1981 titled, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. It became a #1 national best seller. Here’s a summary I found of the book:
Rabbi Kushner’s main idea is that God cannot, or will not, intervene to protect people from tragedies, nor will He punish or reward them for their actions, preferring that humans use their free will without interference. Thus, bad things can happen to good people by accident or from malicious people, and in remedy God offers only His support and love. People must find meaning and purpose from their own strength and resolve in overcoming adversity.
That paints a picture of God that is more deistic than the picture we see in the grand sweep of history. Deism teaches that God created all that exists but then sits back, having wound the clock and letting it run without interference. Here, a Pharaoh comes to power who did not know of Joseph. Bad things are about to happen to the Jewish people. But this is only part of the story. God is at work, not aloof, and actually does intervene in the affairs of man.
The greatest intervention – to which Stephen will point, and which we hold dear – is in sending his Son into the world to seek and save the lost. Jesus is the great intervener, the disrupter of all of history, the evidence that God is not aloof, disconnected, watching the world wind down.
For the Jews of Stephen’s day, the great intervention was through Moses, the Exodus from Egypt and entry into the Promised Land. Moses was their hero. He was, in their estimation, the ultimate authority. He proscribed their religious practice. He laid out the requirements of the laws of sacrifices, rituals, and justice. To think of anyone supplanting him was unthinkable.
But Moses has been supplanted. Jesus is the ultimate expression of God’s redemption and salvation. Not Moses. Not even Abraham. Stephen is laying this out for the people. Part of Moses’ story includes the hardships of the Hebrew people, Moses’ travails, and even the moments of terror at the Red Sea prior to their dry-land crossing.
Maybe there are some bad things happening in your life now. Difficulties will challenge us to carry on day to day. Not all things that happen are good. But God is at work through all of these things. And the bad things are not the end of the story. They are the opportunities for God to intervene and show his power and glory. They may still be bad. But God is good and at work for his glory and our good.
David Bahn - Reflections 
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