Media Outreach

Raise your hand if there has ever been a time where at the start week of your week you can find yourself more exhausted than you have been at the end of others. Since I can’t see your hands, I trust that there’s someone else out there who knows what I’m talking about! While it may not be the biggest deal in the world, I have had my fair share of T.W.O weeks (you know – Totally Worn Out).

It’s funny, because I always try to diffuse the anxiety of the week by “prepping” for it in advance.  I try to walk-through each day: where I’ll be, how much driving is involved and how much money I will be spending; I call it “getting myself ready,” but I often wonder if it is border line worry. I digress. So then, in my mind, I sit and coach myself by stating the facts, “Okay Rodnesha, you know what’s coming. It’s going to be one of those weeks so you’re just going to have to buckle down, muscle up, pray and hope to God that in the end you haven’t lacked so much sleep that you’re 2 inches from the lobby of Hotel Crazy!”

So what happens then? Well, you start off trying to fire on all four cylinder, but somewhere along the way your tank gets low. Pretty soon, it’s the end of the week,  the chaos ceases, the quiet ensues and you can’t believe you’re actually about to get a decent night’s sleep! And just as your head is about to hit the pillow, you start to reflect on the days gone past and ask, “Lord, why did this week have to be so maniacal?!” Because the reality is that at several points in the previous week you felt yourself being this close to saying, “I can’t; I quit.”

It was then that God took me to Exodus 17:8 to shed a little light on my situation. I began reading this story of how Moses commits to Joshua that as he goes into battle Moses would stand on a hill and keep his staff lifted to God throughout the entire battle to ensure Joshua’s victory. That’s a pretty tall order. So I’m reading this passage and it gets to a point where Moses’ body is beginning to weaken, his arms start to lower and the Israelites start to loose and I start to think, “I bet he’s wishing he hadn’t made that promise!” The reality is, we’ve all been there! We make those promises, we sign-up, we make those pledges, but after a while as the intensity builds, much like Moses, we start to feel our strength leaving and begin to consider jumping ship. But the question is: who is losing a battle because you are relying on your own strength?

So there are a few lessons I took from this passage that I hope will serve as an encouraging reminder of who we are and WHO’s we are:

• Our victories in life aren’t won alone and every one of them requires some form of sacrifice
• God has called us to community – to serve and to bear each other up in times of weakness.
• Our commitments aren’t just about our comfort and God honors those who honor their commitments.
• My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. ~Psalms 73:26