The job we've been given ...

I'm hitting the end of my travels with the Isaelites (kind of sad to have to move on!  Let me know if you  can suggest a new study!).  We are at the end point of the study, coming to the Promised Land.  Only two of the almost two million Isaelites who left Egypt will enter (I finally got it - thus, the title, One in a Million!).  Moses has been disqualified from entering due to His disobedience.  It took me a few days to come to grips with that.  It seemed a little harsh.  Yes, he had been disobedient, but not in "HUGE" infraction kind of ways and he HAD gotten the people out of Egypt and walked with God and with them (albeit imperfectly) for the following forty years.  I mean, David had sex with another man's wife and then had him killed and he was still called "a man after God's heart" ... yeh, Moses didn't seem that bad.  But then, I am not God and I am not just, holy, righteous, perfect AND love.   And His covenant with the people did call for obedience to equal blessing.  Moses had some pretty big "uh ohs."

All of that to say, it's time to bring in a new leader to usher in life in Canaan.  Enter Joshua.  Here we find him taking his first leadership assignment (without questioning, bargaining, doubting, or complaining, I might add!)

Exodus 17: 8-13
The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim.  Moses said to Joshua, "Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands." So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill.  As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning.  When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset.  So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.

Do you see it?  Israel needed Joshua to fight the Amalekites, Joshua needed Moses to hold his arms up to keep God's blessing and favor.  Moses needed Aaron and Hur to hold his arms up when he got tired.  Nobody can do it alone!  We all need each other to do the job God has called us to do.  That's one of the primary reasons I started blogging and sharing life this way intead of tucking thoughts, prayers and insights into a journal on my bookshelf, because the job God has called me to do also depends on YOU!  Your job might be to fight, to hold up your arms to God, or simply to support one who does, but any way, no one else can do what they are called to do if you don't do what you are called to do!

I mean, I'm pretty sure God's been pretty clear that He made us to live in relationship.  He created us to live in community.  This is not a Lone Ranger endeavor.  Our lives are inextricably wound into one another's!  At least they should be!

Think about how many things you can do with the support and help of others.  Few of us endeavor to do things alone, especially "hard" things.  Even the most independent among us (I know, I'm talking to me!) need other people to do this life thing with us!  I started today with a group of ladies who will hold me accountable to be healthier and lose the weight I want to lose.  I start out with that goal most weeks, but it just doesn't happen alone without support and encouragement and motivation! 

However, something else from today's study.  If we are all honest, we've all struggled with it from time to time.  Sometimes we are not assigned the job we want!  Think about it.  Joshua had the hardest, but least "spiritual" of the jobs.  Mind you, we don't find him complaining (if it had been Moses, I can hear the bargaining now!)  In each of our lives and ministry settings, even in our spiritual gifting, sometimes the job we are called to do it NOT the one we'd pick.  However, we've got to remember that doing our job is pivotal to God's work being accomplished ... that whole BODY thing.  Hard sometimes to stand in the wings when our true desire is to be on stage, to minister to a handfull of people when we desire the masses, to listen and not speak, or to speak rather than listen.  But we each have a job that is important to the work, that was preordained before we were born and that God has specially gifted us for (even if we don't see it).

I realize, too, that jobs are often seasonal.  I remember vividly my frustration at times when my "job" was not ministry in nature - it was teaching or nursing or administrative.  I couldn't wait for it to all be ministry. I had to settle for rolling all of my free time into investing in ministry venues and some days it felt schizophrenic balancing all of that out.  I think that is one of the hardest, but most rewarding things to do.  Kind of like Joshua, you get the hard job, but not alot of the glory (that's what the "paid" ministers get!)  If that's you, yah, go YOU!!!  There are times, now, however, when I long for the day when ministry is what I do in my "free" time and nurturing a little family becomes my "primary" job!  Kind of funny how our desires change with seasons.  Almost every single campus minister that I know says they would walk away from their job today for a family.  But recently, one of them commented, "but I don't think anyone believes that about us ..."  It's my heart, though.  Might be the toughest thing I'd ever do and it doesn't mean I walk away from ministry, but it means it takes a backseat to something more precious for that time. 

I think two things really struck me today as I read this passage.  First of all, we need each other!  But secondly, we all have been given a job to do.  We might not have chosen it.  It won't probably be forever.  But for today, we have been given a job and others depend on US!  The things I do (or don't do) don't affect only me!  The choices I made don't only impact my life.  I want to be an Aaron or Hur who comes alongside and helps hold up the load when the burden gets to be too much ... so God can accomplish in others' lives what He has set out to do.  I'm thankful for those of you who have/do that for me!

So, for today, this life is bigger than me!  I want to be intentional in holding up my end of the deal!