I Was Held Up

Fellow BCM missionaries at our regional retreat~Photo by Rick Franklin

We've just returned from our BCM Southeast Regional Missionary Retreat. The gang wasn't great in number this time, but~boy~were they ever big on encouragement! We left refreshed, knowing our fellow missionaries would be praying for us...and we for them.

Each one of these dear ones has known hard times and realizes the importance of comforting others who struggle. Sometimes when you serve God full-time, it's like tiring in battle.

May I share the Biblical account of Moses holding up his arms while the Israelites battled against the enemy (in Exodus 17)? As long as Moses' arms stayed up, the Israelites prevailed. But when his arms wearied and dropped, the enemy prevailed. So Aaron and Hur held up Moses' arms until the battle was over and God's people were victorious. Had it not been for Aaron and Hur, Moses couldn't have endured till the end.

There have been many a time had God not send encouragers to "hold up our arms in the battle," Brian and I would have been overcome. Others at this retreat testified the same. And we all pledged to "hold up each other's arms" when absent from one another~through prayer.

Do you have people like this in your life? If so, you're abundantly blessed. Do you know someone who needs their "arms held up" until their struggle passes? Can you be that one? Especially if you've been on the receiving end of encouragement, you well know how it lifted your spirit to continue on. If you need an encourager now and feel you don't have one, let me know. I'd be so glad to hold you up in prayer.

But Moses' hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. Exodus 17:12