Things appeared to have settled down a little bit after the manna and water from the rock episodes. The people seemed to have been, for the moment at least, happy and content as they marched on their merry way to the Promised Land. Everyone was living in peace and harmony.
And then the Amalekite nation attacked.
Reasons for this are largely unknown. The Bible just says that they came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim, which was probably somewhere in the Sinai Peninsula. Even more strange is that no one seemed to complain, about the only thing the Israelites excelled at.
At any rate, Moses told his young associate (and eventual successor) Joshua to lead the Israelites in a counter-attack. Moses was going to go chill up on a hill with the staff of Yahveh. This apparently was a sound tactical plan. And, for the most part, it worked. Moses stood on the top of the hill with Aaron and someone named Hur whom we never hear of again while Joshua and the Israelites fight the Amalekites.
Now here is where things naturally get a little strange. As long as Moses held his arms up, the Israelites were winning and whenever he lowered his arms, the Israelites started losing. How or why this worked is a mystery but this is how things went.
Obviously there is a bit of a problem here. I don't know if you've ever tried to see how long you can hold your arms up, but it's not very long. Certainly not long enough to win a battle. And sure enough, Moses arms begin to get tired and the Israelites are in trouble.
This is where Aaron and Hur come to the rescue. They take a stone to use as a seat for Moses and then they hold Moses arms up. The entire day! The two of them just stand there, holding his arms up while the Israelites proceed to win the battle.
There are many points that could be taken from this story such as Yahveh essentially declaring war on the Amalekites and a "don't mess with Yahveh's people" idea, but this story, exciting as it is, is really an introduction to the next story, which for Moses had to be far more terrifying.
He gets a visit from the in-laws.
Apparently sometime between Moses leaving Midian and confronting Pharaoh, he had sent Zipporah and the kids back to Midian for obvious reasons. Moses was going up against the most powerful man in the world and he didn't want his family exposed to reprisals.
But now he has emerged victorious (well, Yahveh has, but I think you get the idea) from his contest with Pharaoh and is now in the neighborhood. So Jethro pops down for a visit with the family, which had to both make Moses nervous and excited. (Probably not nervous as he seems to have had a good relationship with Jethro)
The family is there and as is often the case when the extended family visits, they wanted to see Moses at his work. So Jethro sits and watch as Moses acts as judge and counselor to the entire Israelite assembly, by himself.
It would seem that Moses was the only one capable of serving as judge and organizer for the people. Or at least, that is what Moses though. And so he sat by himself in front of the entire assembly as everyone, and I mean everyone, brought every single little issue to him to deal with from murder (assuming that happened) to "He built his tent too close to mine." That had to have been exhausting.
Jethro seems to have come to the same conclusion and told Moses that he was on the fast track for burn-out. At the rate he was going, he wear himself to nothing before they even got to the Promised Land and Moses needed to do something to fix that.
Being the wise man that he was, Jethro suggested that maybe Moses ought to share the load. Get a group of people together, teach them how to be judges under Yahveh and let them handle the smaller things. If it's something they can't handle, they bump it up to the next level until on the really big things are put in Moses's lap. Essentially Jethro proposes a sort of district court system with Moses as the Supreme Court. That way Moses's life would be more balanced and less hectic.
Moses didn't argue and put into place Jethro's plan. It took some time, I'm certain, to find the right people for the job and to train them but once he did, Moses's life became a lot easier, or at least that is what the Bible indicates.
But real issue here is how did it get to this point in the first place? Jethro's proposal is little more than common sense. After all, who in their right mind could think that they alone could serve as judge and counselor for an entire nation?
The answer of course is that Moses felt he was alone. He didn't feel that he could trust anyone else with the burden that Yahveh had given him. Given the Israelites recent petulance, I can understand that to a degree. And so Moses thought he stood alone on the hill and thought he stood alone before the Israelites. Everything, he felt, was on him.
But it wasn't. There were people that Moses could trust to help him lead the Israelites to Canaan. Aaron and Hur stood by his side on the hill while Joshua fought the Amalekites. Potential leaders were everywhere in the assembly to help him govern the people.
When we read what Moses was doing, our initial reaction is to think he is crazy to try to do all that alone. But how often do we do the same thing? Yahveh has given us a task to do, a reason for existence and often we feel that we must do it alone. No one else, in our minds, can be trusted with it, whatever "it" is.
This is of course patented-nonsense. Of course there are others who can be trusted with it because usually whatever Yahveh has for us is far bigger that what we can handle on our own. That, perhaps, is what he was trying to teach Moses on that hill. In order for the Israelites to win, Moses had to let someone help him. He couldn't do it alone.
The challenges Yahveh has given us are often far bigger than anything we can ever do on our own and yet we try anyway. I have seen so many times people who are passionately dedicated to Yahveh's service burn-out and fail because they didn't trust the people around them to help. Instead they tried to do it all on their own. Even I've come perilously close to it on more than one occasion.
I don't know what it is about the human condition that makes us so naturally distrusting. Maybe it's pride or maybe it's fear or maybe a combination of both. But whatever the reason is, trusting others to help is hard.
But that makes it no less necessary. Whatever mission Yahveh has called us to, it isn't about us, prides and fears included. It is one of those things we simply have to get over and trust, like Moses just had to make a conscious choice to let others share the burden.
I'm not saying it's easy; it isn't. Everything in us rebels at having to let others in. But no one ever said that following Yahveh would be easy. In fact, it is often hard, which is why we need others more than ever.
In the end, it is like the Nike slogan: just do it. You have to make a conscious choice to let others help and stick by it. Sometimes they screw up but often time's people surprise you with their ability to help.
There are Aarons and Hurs all around us. It is merely a matter of swallowing our pride and quieting our fears to see them. That maybe hard, but in the end it is far easier and better than trying to fight through burn-out.
So look for your judges and Aarons and Hurs. Find them and let them hold up your arms.
No comments:
Post a Comment