He Has Been the Strong One So Long Nobody Thinks to Ask

His phone rang four times last week and every one of them was somebody who needed something.

That is not a complaint. He wants to say that first, because it always comes out like a complaint and it is not. He is glad to be the one people call. He has built a lot of his life on being reachable and he would not change it.

What he noticed, standing in a hospital lobby at seven in the morning holding somebody else's coat, was that he could not name the person he would call.

Not because there is nobody. There are people. He could list four who would come. He simply has never done it, not once, not in about eleven years, and the not-doing has gone on so long that doing it now would be an event.

And by this point everybody around him has quietly filed him under fine. Which is not their fault, because he wrote the file himself and he keeps it up to date.

The man God picked argued that he was wrong for it

The man everybody thinks of as the strongest figure in the Old Testament spends most of a chapter trying to get out of the job.

And Moses said unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. (Exodus 4:10, King James Version)

He gives four separate objections across two chapters. This is the third.

And God's answer is never a line about hidden reserves. He does not say it once.

He answers the objections one at a time, and then, when the man keeps going, He gives him a brother to do the talking. He solves it with a second person rather than with a pep talk.

You are answered with help rather than with a speech about your capacity. Exodus 4 has God adding somebody instead of arguing, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes that solution land on a man who has never asked anybody for anything.

His father-in-law told him flatly that he could not do it

There is a scene where an old man watches him work for one day and then tells him something nobody else was going to.

And Moses' father in law said unto him, The thing that thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. (Exodus 18:17-18)

Thou wilt surely wear away.

Read who else is in that sentence. Both thou, and this people that is with thee. The wearing away does not stop at the man. It reaches everybody depending on him.

That is the part a man in this position never factors in. He does the arithmetic on what he can take, and he leaves out what happens to the people leaning on him when the thing gives.

And nobody calls Jethro unspiritual for saying it. The chapter records it as good advice and the man takes it.

You are not able to perform it alone and the Bible says so in as many words. Exodus 18 states it as a fact rather than as a criticism, and it is His Spirit who makes an old man's blunt sentence sound like care rather than an insult.

God takes the weight off and puts it on other people

Later, the same man says something to God that is worth reading carefully, because it is not polite.

He says the burden is too heavy and asks to be killed rather than carry it.

And God's answer is not a rebuke and not a rescue. It is a redistribution.

And I will come down and talk with thee there: and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone. (Numbers 11:17)

That thou bear it not thyself alone.

God's own stated objective in that verse is to get the weight off one man and onto seventy. He does not treat the load as a badge and He does not treat carrying it alone as faithfulness.

You have a God whose stated plan is that you not carry it by yourself. Numbers 11 puts the reason in the verse, and it is the Holy Spirit, named in that same sentence as what gets distributed, who does the spreading.

Paul's strength was in the wrong place

There is a famous sentence about weakness, and the setup matters more than people usually notice.

Paul asks three times for something to be removed. It is not removed. And the answer he gets is this:

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Made perfect in weakness.

He is not saying weakness is good. He is saying it is the location. It is where the thing operates from.

Which means a man who has spent eleven years making sure no weakness is visible has been carefully sealing the one access point.

You are strongest at the place you have been keeping shut. 2 Corinthians 12 names the location rather than praising the condition, and it is His Spirit who makes that reversal feel like relief rather than a trick.

And the instruction goes both directions

There is a line in Galatians that gets quoted at people who need help. Read it as an instruction to the one who gives it.

Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2)

One another's. That is a two-way word.

A man who only ever carries and never hands anything over is not fulfilling that instruction. He is doing half of it and calling the half a standard.

And there is something else in it. Every time he refuses to hand something over, he takes an opportunity away from somebody who was ready to carry it.

You are holding somebody else's assignment when you carry all of it. Galatians 6 makes it mutual in the wording, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes that read as an invitation instead of an accusation.