Passage
“But Moses’ hands were heavy… and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side.” — Exodus 17:12
Reflection
Israel is in the middle of a battle against Amalek, and while Joshua fights below, Moses holds his arms up on the hill, because as long as his hands are raised, Israel is winning. But one man’s arms, no matter how much faith he has, get tired. The text doesn’t say Moses gives up or pretends he isn’t tired. It says Aaron and Hur, one on each side, hold up his hands until the battle is over.
It’s easy to think that carrying a battle entirely on your own is what’s expected of a strong man. That asking for help, or simply letting someone notice you can’t keep going, is some kind of failure. But Moses, one of the leaders God used most powerfully in all of Scripture, didn’t win that battle purely on his own strength until the end. He won it because two men were willing to hold him up when he could no longer hold himself up.
Paul turns this into almost a command centuries later: “bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). He doesn’t say to carry your own load privately and in silence. He says carrying it together is, literally, how the law of Christ is fulfilled. The battle you’re fighting right now, the one that’s left your arms exhausted, may not have been designed for you to hold up entirely alone.
Prayer
Lord, thank you that even Moses needed someone to hold up his arms. Forgive me for the times I confuse asking for help with weakness. Give me the humility to let someone hold up what I can no longer hold alone, and give me the willingness to be that support for someone else when their arms grow tired. Amen.