Victory is coming

It has been a while since the Lord pinned something on my heart to write. This past year has been a long battle with anxiousness and a season filled with change and transition. It has felt like the Lord is just squeezing and pruning my heart relentlessly. Showing me deep seated lies I've allowed myself to believe and teaching me how to re-align with his truth and joy. Yesterday morning, he brought me to a passage of scripture that has helped sum up the struggles and fight I have found my faith to be at times.

In Exodus 17, we find Moses preparing for war with a people called the Amalekites. As I researched this passage, one commentary stated that these people would have been great and powerful enemies of the Israelites. Not only that, but they came at a time when Israel was exhausted. If you read from verse one of this chapter, you see that the people were struggling in the desert. They couldn't find water and they had started to question why they were on the journey and if it was really worth it. The lord of course provides for their need but Moses ends that section by naming the place "Massah and Meribah" because it was the spot where the Israelites asked "is the Lord among us or not?" Immediately the very next thing we see is this great enemy approaching them.

Despite this double hit from the enemy, Moses is not shaken by this. He immediately puts a plan in place. He tells Joshua to go fight and he takes Aaron and Hur up to the top of a hill. Whenever Moses raises his hands with the rod God gave him, Joshua and the Israelites prevail but whenever he lowers them, they begin to lose.

Pause here and imagine being Joshua with me. The scripture doesnt say that Moses explained everything. It just says that Moses told him to gather a few men and go fight. He doesn't tell him why or that God has told Moses he would prevail. He doesnt even give him a strategy. He just says go do and Joshua is left to trust that Moses knows what he is doing.

I put myself in Joshua's shoes and I can tell you I would likely not react the same. I would get salty and question why Moses and Aaron and Hurr, the top leaders of their people were sending them to a seemingly death wish while they go sit up on top of a mountain to watch. But Joshua doesn't do that. It says that he fought just as Moses had instructed him. I believe that what helped Joshua was that he knew Moses had been placed over him by God. So when Moses told him to do something he did it without hesitation because he knew that God's authority could be trusted.

While this sounds simple written out as I have described, I think it was still hard for Joshua. The fight lasted from sunrise to sunset. No break or lull. Just a constant battle with ups and downs. I wonder if he knew that his fate rested on whether or not Moses kept his hands up holding the sacred rod. I wonder if resentment built up anytime Moses faltered and one of his men became wounded. We don't know any answers to this and I think that is intentional. Because this story is not about whether or not Joshua was faithful. It's not about if Moses was a great leader or not. It's about God's power to hold his people together and bring about victory through their dependance on him.

We can see this clearly by zooming into Moses on the hill. I imagine he must have felt the tremendous pressure of having to hold the rod up to the sky for likely 12 hours or more. Being up on the hill with the sun beating down on him. Hearing the screams of a man down when exhaustion caused his arms to falter.

It seems like a very tramatic experience. Why would God call a leader to that? How would he be able to maintain that kind of strength?

First is what I have already hinted at: full dependance on the Lord. I think as Christians we say that but we really dont get it and we definetly dont want it. This picture is painful. It's surrender with no questions. It's perseverance with unclear endings. And it doesn't mean that we are exempt from the fight, it likely means we are directly in it.

So this is how Moses survived: he never let go of the rod. Commentaries say that the rod symbolizes the Word of God here. They also say this entire fight is symbolic to the New Testimate teaching that we don't fight with flesh and blood but that we are in a spiritual battle. I think that's why this weird plot twist of Moses' hands being up or down with a random rod in his hand is so prominant. It's not about the fight between brothers (or sisters). It's about "Am I going to hold on to the rod with my hands in surrender until the Lord brings about victory?"

I would say that this past year I have found myself in almost every part of this story. I have found myself at the dependance of others without a clear vision of outcomes. I've found myself in the heat of the sun, striving to maintain and hold all that I know to be true. But the place that I have found myself the most is in the part I love most about this story. The part where scripture shows us that Moses gets tired.

Moses knew this about himself too. He didn't say "I'm the leader, I got this." He grabbed two of his most trusted leaders and invited them to come with him to the battle. While Moses took on the greatest burdens, he allowed his leaders to step in and help hold the burden up when he needed it.

As someone that works in the church I think I should know and remember this more but it is usually the first thing that I forget. I forget that I am merely human, that I can also get tired and weighed down by the burdens in life. I just keep trying to run as hard as I can for the Lord only to suddenly realize that along that way I dropped the rod and that my hands have become limp at my sides. We need each other to guard against this. The Lord has given each of us a battle that holds its own weight, but he never called us to carry it alone. If you can't clearly define who your Aaron or Hur is, ask him to show you because I promise they are there. Tell them to each grab an arm and resolve to hold on to the rod and keep your heart in surrender at all costs. Because we may not know when the sun will set, but we do know that victory is coming.