To say that the last couple of years have been hard to walk through would be an understatement. Emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual fatigue begin to take their toll after a while. It has been hard for me personally, but it has also been hard for others in my family as well. 2022 was a year of loss, or gain, depending on how you are looking at the situation, by the spirit or the natural. My aunt Anna passed away early in the year, and in the summer, my father, her brother, joined her. My Uncle Buddy was met with an emotional load that no one should have to shoulder, losing two siblings he was very close to back-to-back. My grandmother passed away in the fall, and while is bittersweet as she was ready to go home to be with the Lord, the bitterness sometimes outweighs the sweet. I was met with my own physical issues that resulted in surgery. My husband’s shoulder issue got to the point where it required surgery just this last week. People I love are carrying burdens, heavy ones, and not knowing what to do to help them has caused my own heart to break.
Recently when crying out to God in prayer for my mother, I told Him, “I don’t know what to do to help her. I don’t know how to make some of this easier for her.” And immediately the beginning of Galatians 6:2 was stirred in my spirit. Bear one another’s burdens. Followed by, “You don’t have to DO anything, just be there and help bear the load.” I suddenly felt ashamed because I realized that I was trying to be God and fix it rather than to lean on and trust Him.
The Hebrew word Tamak (Taw-mak) means to hold up or support. We see this word in action in Exodus 17. Amalek came and attacked Israel and Moses had Joshua choose men to go out and fight. The next day Moses stood on top of a hill with his staff. His brother Aaron and Hur went with him. As Moses had his hands raised, the battle went in favor of Israel, but when his hands would grow heavy and lower, the battle went in favor of the Amalekites. Verse 12 says, “so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat down on it. Aaron and Hur held up his hands, the one on the one side and the other on the other, so that his hands stayed steady until sunset.” Notice it doesn’t say that Moses asked them to get the stone and to help hold his arms up, they instantly moved to help him bear the burden when they saw his strength fail and him struggle to hold his arms up to the Lord.
When we see not just those we love struggling, but any of our brothers or sisters in Yeshua, we don’t have to fight the battle in the physical by doing anything unless it is something that we have a way where we can, but rather in prayer or a word of affirmation. When they are too weary to hold their hands up to the Lord, we stand with them and help hold their arms up. We help them bear the burden until the Lord brings victory. Ephesians 6:12 tells us, “For we are not struggling against human beings, but against the rulers, authorities and cosmic powers governing this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm.” Spiritual situations cannot be fought by physical methods. 2 Corinthians 10:4 reads, “Because the weapons we use to wage war are not worldly. On the contrary, they have God’s power for demolishing strongholds.”
When those around us are in a place where they cannot offer up a hallelujah, we step in, help hold their arms up, and join our hallelujah to theirs and strengthen them. We help them pray, we help them praise, we cry with them, we share the compassion of Yeshua and let them know that they do not stand or fight alone. There is an Aaron or a Hur standing with them to hold up their arms and to help bear that burden.
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