Sunday, March 27, 2011

What am I to do with these People? - Moses talking to God about the Jews

     We went to a Men's Retreat this weekend.  Despite my being sick I went on faith with the hopes that the weekend would not be the end of me, but help to invigorate my spirit.  It is a yearly event and we can usually get about twenty or thirty of the guys to go, its quite an experience in a very beautiful setting.  This year we were plagued by foul weather, but I believed it was the will of God to keep us inside talking to each other instead of separating and doing our outdoor activities, simply put, God wanted us to be fisher's of men, not so much fisher's of fish.  Our days were split up between meals and free time with lectures throughout the day.  Our Pastor gave one of the lectures on Moses and the book of Exodus.  I give the credit for this bloggable to him because it was his idea and I am simply expanding on that idea, and here it is....

     There is a little story with what could be considered a big impact in the book of Exodus.  This particular story is about the Israelites fighting the Amelikites, lets call them the big A's versus the little J's.(Exodus 17:8-16)  The big A's had a large army, and should have easily defeated the little J's.  But there was one thing that the little J's had on their side, the Big G.  The indepth story of Exodus is that the Jew's were freed from slavery by the adopted prince of the Pharoah, Moses, who took them to the promised land, where they waffled about what they wanted to do at every turn.  They wandered around the desert for forty years, waffling, until the army of Amalek came upon them.  These were a large people, who greatly outnumbered the jews.  It truly is a great underdog story, because the big A's should have wiped up the dessert with these people.  But before the battle began, Moses said to Joseph, who would eventually be the one who took the jews to the promised land, and who actually met Jesus, thats right, Jesus, more on that in another blog, 'Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites.  Tomorrow I will stand on top of a hill with the staff of God in my hands.'  Joshua did as he was commanded, but Moses was a great leader, he was taught leadership by the Pharoah's of Egypt after all, he was a Prince for a while.  Moses went atop the hill to watch the battle and hold high the staff of God, the same staff that broke the stone and made water, the same staff that turned into a serpent in front of Pharoah, the very same staff that parted the Red Sea.  But Moses was an old man, he was about eighty at the time, so being wise, he took Aaron and Hur with him atop the hill.  Everytime that Moses grew weary and lowered the staff the big A's would start winning, and when he held it high, the little J's would win.  So Aaron and Hur seeing Moses grow tired placed a rock under him so he could sit, and they held his hands up on either side until sunset.  By doing this Joshua was able to defeat the much larger army.  So what does all this mean in modern terms, how can we relate to this......

     Moral-  Pastor John used this message to tie in with the male aspect of how we need each other, how we need to support one another.  You see, in life and in all things, we cannot accomplish anything alone.  God never intended Man to be alone, he first gave him a woman, we see how that worked out, settle down ladies.  But God has always intended His people to be relational, to be in community.  You see, we all strive to live a life like Jesus, but Christ being God is an unobtainable goal, we should strive to be more like Moses, just a very smart man.  Moses was not perfect, he was alot like us in some ways, flawed, and in no way wanted to accept the things God wanted him to do, ring a bell with any of you.  But being a smart man Moses learned that the will of God is more powerful than our own will, and indeed our own strength.  But not if we remain in community with one another, we can hold each other up, rest up, and in community, could hold that staff up high as long as we wanted to if it was the will of God.  In community is the only time we can fully accomplish the will of the Lord.  We must be willing like Moses was to realize that we cannot handle a task like holding up a stick all day by ourselves, and that sometimes in our lives, even the simplest of chores may require us to humble ourselves to ask for help.  But here is our ultimate flaw.  How many of us want to be Aaron or Hur?  It is not within the true male spirit to sit atop a hill and watch the battle from afar holding up an old mans arms, WE WANT TO BE THE WARRIORS, we want to be Joshua.  That will be the hardest part of this lesson, we can't all be Joshua, we can't all be the warriors, even though God filled us with a warriors spirit.  Sometimes we can't be the lead actor on the stage, we must accept that we are the guy who pulls the chord to let the curtain up and down.  What this really means is, not only do we need to be able to ask for help from our brothers, but we must be willing to be helpers too.  How many of us can say we are always there for or Christian brothers 24/7?  The harsh reality is, we are seldom there enough for our wife and kids, let alone or church family.  We are far too involved in our own things, and in those things, doing it by ourselves.  Learning to be accountable and learning to accept help from others is the only way we can ever win any of these life battles.  How long will you stand and hold that staff until you are so tired you can no longer do so?  A battle can never be won when fought by one.  How long will you wander in the dessert, waffling about?  I write these things to lift your spirits, who among you will even admit to reading it, I have a community of anonymous, I am not Moses, I am Aaron or Hur, who are you?

1 comment:

  1. Great job! This story also hit me hard! How stupid are we to think that we can do things alone? God included Jesus and the Holy Spirit in creation! "Let us make man on our image."

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