A Humbled Heart Sees Help as a Blessing
Numbers 11:4-6, 10-17, 24-29
4 The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! 5 We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. 6 But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!”
10 Moses heard the people of every family wailing at the entrance to their tents. The Lord became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled. 11 He asked the Lord, “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? 12 Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their ancestors? 13 Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ 14 I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. 15 If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me—if I have found favor in your eyes—and do not let me face my own ruin.”
16 The Lord said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with you. 17 I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone.
24 So Moses went out and told the people what the Lord had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the tent. 25 Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took some of the power of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied—but did not do so again.
26 However, two men, whose names were Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the tent. Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp. 27 A young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”
28 Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses’ aide since youth, spoke up and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!”
29 But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”
A Humbled Heart Sees Help as a Blessing
“Why don’t you ask for help?”
That’s what my mom said to my dad during our family road trip out to the Dakotas. As we were nearing the edge of Minnesota, my dad made a wrong turn and we got lost. “Why don’t you pull over and ask for directions?” my mom asked. My dad – holding the map over the steering wheel – reassures my mom he actually knew where he was going. He was the one who planned the trip after all. I mean, it’d be pretty embarrassing for him to get lost on a trip he himself planned! So it became a showdown between my dad’s pride and the ever-growing dilemma of us being lost. Eventually, pride lost the day, and my dad pulled over at a gas station and asked for directions – but not before my sister got carsick and my little brother started crying his eyes out.
“Why don’t you ask for help?” Maybe you’re better about stopping for directions than my dad was, but there are plenty of other times we find ourselves in need of help. But, we use our own resourcefulness to come up with a solution for those problems. We call an IT guy to troubleshoot our computer issues. We go to the grocery store when we need to buy food. If you’re sick, you go and see a doctor or physician to get the help and treatment you need. So long as we have the time, energy, and resources, we feel we can solve just about anything. But what if the problems you face start to strain your time, energy and resources? What happens when we are financially unstable? What happens when we are emotionally drained? What happens when we start to buckle under all our responsibilities? What happens when those hardships reach the point they are far beyond your ability to handle?
Why don’t we ask for help? The answer is pride. Pride sees help as unnecessary. As weakness. As no good. Instead, the better response to hardship is humility. Because a humbled heart sees help as a blessing.
Our story picks up in the desert of Sinai. It’s been many years since the people of Israel left Egypt. God had done so much for his people since then. Time and time again, God had shown the strength of his arm to help and save his children. But our story picks up in the midst of controversy in the camps of Israel, where a group of people within the camp start to hunger for different kinds of food. They were tired of manna – the bread God gave them from heaven. They missed the buffets of Egypt: the exotic fruits, the vegetables, and the meat. To them, their affliction and slavery in Egypt was better than their freedom as nomads in a desert with bread from God as their diet. In their eyes, that bread was literally next to nothing. Now, Israelites from every clan audaciously stood outside their tents in protest against Moses and against God.
This left Moses feeling overwhelmed. He had done everything that God asked him. God asked him to lead, and he led. God asked him to bring his people out of Egypt, and Moses did. God asked him to lead them through the desert to the land he promised them. And Moses was. And now the people are crying out, saying their time as slaves was better than now – demanding that Moses give something better to eat. The anger and frustration of the people left Moses feeling like he couldn’t do the job God gave him. But if God was the one who gave him this calling, then why is the workload too much for him to bear? Then we hear the voice of Moses’ pride. “These children aren’t mine, yet you’ve asked me to function as their parent! I didn’t “father” these children. You did! And yet you’ve asked me to bear the weight of “raising” this nation by myself! I can’t do it alone! It’s just too much!”
Ironically, Moses was absolutely right. But his attitude about it was absolutely wrong. In his despair, it seemed that God had set him up for failure. Like the deck was stacked against him. God asked him to lead, and when he couldn’t do it alone, it nearly burned him out. So deep was this despair that he was convinced that the best thing – the only thing – God could do for him would be putting him out of his misery. Moses had thrown in the towel. He was confronted with the reality that he couldn’t carry the work of leading God’s people alone. But his pride had him searching for the solution inside himself. And when his search came up empty, his pride led him to despair.
Suddenly, Moses sounds pretty relatable, doesn’t he?
God has called us, too. Some of those responsibilities are plumber, police officer, CEO, doctor, musician, manager, teacher, technician, parent, or student. These are callings uniquely tasked to us by God himself. We set out with zealous intention to faithfully carry out the tasks we’re given. But what happens when we can’t? What happens when your financial insecurity seems like it couldn’t get much worse? What happens when the bills keep on coming and you’re in between jobs? What happens when you are emotionally drained after a brutal week and are now going into a new week feeling completely empty? What happens when your health takes a turn for the worse? How do respond when things seem too big for you to carry? To wild for you to control? What happens when you start to buckle under the weight of your responsibilities, under the weight of all the hardships and stressors. You see the surmounting list of things wrong in your life – and you wonder, “How am I going to get through this?”
Our eyes turn inward for the solution. We double-down and say “I got this. I just need to work harder. I need to plan better. I need to do more.” But what happens when that still isn’t enough? When that trust in ourselves is broken and we are confronted with the reality that our own strength just isn’t enough, we often turn to despair. “How can I possibly get through this week?” “How am I going to make it through today?” “How am I going to possibly pay all these bills due this month?” “How will I meet all these deadlines?” “God, are you setting me up for failure? Can’t you see I’m trying my best here?” Pride blinds us. We don’t ask for help. We don’t want to burden someone else with our problems. We feel no one understands our problems anyway, so how could they help? We role our eyes when someone gives us suggestions. We still feel we can fix it ourselves. Or we’re convinced there’s nothing anyone can do to help – not our friends, our family, or even our spouse. Pride causes tunnel vision that has us seeing every problem in our lives as something we personally must be able to fix on our own. But we can’t.
The thing is God knows you can’t. The real question is, do we? There are tons of things we regularly experience that are physically, emotionally, and spiritually too heavy for us to carry. Maybe it’s the weight of our schedule, the hurt in our hearts, or the guilt from our sins. But what about for God? Is God’s arm too weak to carry our sorrows? Are God’s shoulders not strong enough to bear our burdens? Is our God too wimpy to remove the guilt of our sins forever? Moses, in his despair, didn’t think God was strong enough to help him. But God says to him, “Is the LORD’s arm to short? Is the LORD too weak to help you? Or are you, Moses, too proud to ask for it?” For Moses, it took humbling for him to see the importance of help. Because a humbled heart sees help as a blessing. And a humble heart will ask for help.
God knew Moses couldn’t lead 2 million people by himself. So God provided help for him. God says, “Moses, I will take the Holy Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on 70 men who will also serve as spiritual leaders. They will help you carry the burden of spiritually leading this nation – so you don’t have to carry it alone.” This brings joy to Moses’ humbled heart. “I wish all of the LORD’s people were prophets!” But that wasn’t all God did. God knew Moses couldn’t provide food in the desert for 2 million people, either. So God did. But God has done one far greater than even that! The weight of our sins and the holy demand for perfection was far, far beyond our ability to carry. Our sins of pride trip us up every month, every week, every day. A humbled heart stands before a holy, righteous God very conscious of the reality that we can’t do what he demands. So is God setting us up for failure? No. Because our God has given us the greatest help we could ever ask for. He’s given the gift of himself: Jesus. Jesus came to serve us, by putting us first and fulfilling the law perfectly in our place. There was not a drop of pride found in him. He lived a life of perfect humility, and then carried our sin, guilt and shame to the cross. Because our God is strong to save. So, why don’t you ask for help?
Since that trip to the Badlands, my dad has certainly gotten better at asking for help. Because challenges daily humble us. They remind us to look – not inside, but – outside ourselves for the solution. They remind us to look to God. He knows we can’t do our callings by ourselves. But he never sets us up for failure. He promises to hold you up when you can’t stand. He promises to always be with you – even when you’re alone. He promises that the sin, guilt and shame that weigh us down has been lifted from our shoulders and placed on his Son Jesus. He’s proved it. He’s delivered you this far, hasn’t he? The God who got us through yesterday will get us through tomorrow – and he uses people in your life to do it! The helping hands of your God can be seen all around you: your friends, your family, your husband, your wife, and your church. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Because a humble heart knows help is a blessing. Amen.