A few years ago, I went through a really tough season where I walked slowly through a deep and dark faith crisis. It had come upon due to some anxiety I was having in my life. I was really struggling with the fact that my life did not look like what I hoped it would. As someone who has followed the Lord most of my life and always held prayer to such a high importance, I started to really struggle with the Lord on why He wasn’t answering certain prayers of mine. It shook my faith and cast me into a season of depression.
In Exodus 17, we see the Israelites continuing on their journey towards the land that the Lord had promised for them. Along the way, they encountered blessing and abundance from the Lord, as well as times of enemy hostility, hunger, thirst, fear, etc. The Lord had always provided for the Israelites. Anytime it seemed like He wasn’t going to come through for them, they began to second-guess everything about God’s character.
Do you see yourself in the Israelites? I know I do. My season of a faith crisis centered on my lack of trust and belief that God was good no matter what my circumstances were. It is easy to praise the Lord in seasons of abundance, but it requires the working of our “faith muscle” to continue praising the Lord in seasons of want. And not only does it require the working of our own faith muscle, it requires the help of other believers in Christ whom the Lord is working through in our lives.
I love the story of Moses’s brother Aaron and their friend Hur who came to Moses’ aid in Exodus 17:11-12. The Israelites were experiencing an attack from an enemy, the Amalekites. As Moses tasked Joshua with choosing strong men to go out and fight on behalf of the Israelites, Moses went to the top of the hill with the staff of God in his hand. This was the same staff that had been in his hand when the Lord parted the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to escape from the hand of the Egyptians, and it was the one that had just provided water out of a rock.
Exodus 17:11 says, “Whenever Moses would raise his hands, then Israel prevailed, but whenever he would rest his hands, then Amalek prevailed.” You may be wondering why Moses would ever drop his hands, but we must remember that Moses was a human just like all of us. When was the last time you could hold your arms up for longer than a minute without them getting tired?
Moses needed his family and friends. He needed his community to help him. Aaron and Hur stepped in to put a stone under him so that he could sit. Then they stood at his side to hold his arms up (Exodus 17:12).
That’s the same type of community I needed when I was in the thick of a faith crisis. I tried to get through it on my own until one day the Lord put it on my heart to humble myself and ask two of my best friends to lay their hands on me and pray for me. Being honest in my struggle with those friends and humbling myself before the Lord is what brought me out of that faith crisis. Moses trusting his friends to hold him up is what allowed Israel to defeat the enemy.
Do you have community like that in your life? Do you have family and friends who will hold you up both physically and spiritually when you need it? Are you that type of community for others? I pray we all have Aarons and Hurs in our life, while we seek out ways to be Aarons and Hurs for others.
