Lean On God's People

This time of year, couples and groups seem to be everywhere. Choirs caroling of Christmas cheer. Couples kissing beneath the mistletoe. Groups serving their community together.

But when we’ve hit our bottom, when the world is spinning out of control, and the holidays are harder than ever, we often times seek to be alone. We’d rather hole up with our pain than have to face a crowd of merry faces. 

But that’s never what God intended.

If you’re feeling low this year, I suggest you cancel your escape to the Himalayas. Forget the deserted island. This is no time to be a hermit. Be a barnacle on the boat of God’s church. “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20).

Would the sick avoid the hospital? The hungry avoid the food pantry? The discouraged abandon God’s Hope Distribution Center? Only at great risk. His people purvey his presence.

Moses and the Israelites once battled the Amalekites. The military strategy of Moses was a strange one. He commissioned Joshua to lead the fight in the valley below. Moses ascended the hill to pray. But he did not go alone. He took his two lieutenants, Aaron and Hur. While Joshua led the physical combat, Moses engaged in a spiritual fight.

Aaron and Hur stood on either side of their leader to hold up his arms in the battle of prayer. The Israelites prevailed because Moses prayed.

Moses prevailed because he had others to pray with him.

My wife did something similar. Years ago Denalyn battled a dark cloud of depression. Every day was gray. Her life was loud and busy—two kids in elementary school, a third in kindergarten, and a husband who didn’t know how to get off the airplane and stay home. The days took their toll. Depression can buckle the knees of the best of us, but it can be especially difficult for the wife of a pastor. Congregants expect her to radiate joy and bite bullets. But Denalyn, to her credit, has never been one to play games. On a given Sunday when the depression was suffocating, she armed herself with honesty and went to church. If people ask me how I am doing, I’m going to tell them.

She answered each “How are you?” with a candid “Not well. I’m depressed. Will you pray for me?”

Casual chats became long conversations. Brief hellos became heartfelt moments of ministry. By the time she left the worship service, she had enlisted dozens of people to hold up her arms in the battle of prayer. She traces the healing of her depression to that Sunday morning service. She found God’s presence amid God’s people.

He’s waiting on you, my friend. If Joseph’s story is any precedent, God can use these hard times to teach you that he is with you. Your family may be gone. Your supporters may have left. Your counselor may be silent. But God has not budged. His promise still stands: “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go” (Gen. 28:15 NIV). And his people are there for you to lean on.  Let his people lift you up.

This excerpt is drawn from You'll Get Through This. Sometimes the challenges of life threaten to overwhelm us. Maybe it's been a day of a financial crisis, a bad diagnosis, an accident, or you were served divorce papers by your spouse. Whatever it was, Max Lucado reminds us that God will help you through this.