Lessons from a Bearded-Dude Waving a Stick

Mike Leake

“Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.  But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side.  So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.”

Why in the world is this necessary?  If God wanted to strike the armies of Amalek, display his power, and rescue Israel why did he not simply send a tornado or something cool like that?  Why does it depend on a bearded dude raising a stick in the air? 

I do not know for sure but I have a couple of guesses.  There are a couple of things that this act communicates.  Lessons that are vitally important for Israel—and remain vitally important even for us.  One thing that this story communicates is that Moses is the conduit of grace that God is going to use to lead Israel fully out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.  God works through leaders.  Leaders are important.

But the second lesson is just as important as the first—Moses is only a conduit of grace.  Even though the mission vitally depends on God using Moses to lift up his hands, Moses is still just a man that cannot hold up his hands all day.

Can you imagine trying to do what Moses was asked to do? 

Do you remember in grade school whenever the teacher for some unknown reason refused to call on you?  (Perhaps, she had had enough wisecracks).  I do.  And I remember it didn’t take long for my little hands to get tired and I had to start propping it up with my other arm.  Then I’d switch hands.  And then switch hands.  And then again.  (Now, that I’m thinking about this…come on teacher…why didn’t you call on me?) 

Well those few minutes in grade school always felt like an eternity.  I cannot imagine what Moses felt like having to hold his hand up for hours upon hours.

The Pressure of Leadership

But this is more important than getting to answer a question (or at least make a funny remark).  If Moses lets down his hands some of his people are going to bite the bullet.  That’s a lot of pressure.  Moses cannot afford to take a 15 minute break and rest his hands.  In 15 minutes a battle can be decided.  So Moses cannot take a breather. 

This helps us to kind of realize that leaders face much pressure.  Often if we “let down our hands” the movement suffers, or even worse real-true-to life individual people suffer.  So leaders get weary keeping their hands held up all day.  We know that if we let our hands down it will be for our detriment and the detriment of others. 

The Necessity of Aaron’s and Hur’s

But the reality, like with Moses, is that sometimes you just cannot do it.  Conduits of grace need to be propped up.  Even the best of men are men at best.  And that means we will have to let our hands down.  We aren’t the savior.  We aren’t the provision.  God is.  We are the conduit and sometimes conduits get weak and can’t do their job anymore. 

Thankfully, there is a third way.  Leaders can be propped up.  It’s still Moses keeping his hands up, but Aaron and Hur are standing beside him and lifting up his weary hands when he cannot.  Leaders need Aarons and Hur’s in their lives. 

I am thankful for the men and women that God has placed in my life to be my Aaron or Hur.  I have had dear brothers and sisters in Christ come alongside me in times of my greatest weaknesses and prop up my leadership.  They’ve been used, by God’s grace, to keep my weary hands from dropping.  Aaron and Hur are just as vital as Moses.

Victory is a community project! 

Hey Daddy, Chill Out!

Mike Leake

I’ll warn you in advance this will not be a neatly written treatise or anything like that.  I simply want to share something, hopefully briefly, that I believe the Lord is showing me.  So…no catchy introduction. 

Background: I really love my children.  I am very dedicated to my children.  I want to see them grow into a passionate Jesus-loving, kingdom-building, earth moving man and woman.  I want Isaiah to be a good daddy and great husband.  I want Hannah to be a good mommy and great wife. 

I’m also a sinner.  I have idols.  I have ridiculous self-righteousness.  Part of the reason I want my kids to be “good” Christians is because I want that to reflect upon my super-awesome parenting.  My children are (at least in part) a reflection of my relationship with Jesus.  And I want to look good. 

At the same time that I am passionate about my children I also have a sinful tendency to disengage and shut-down when I get overwhelmed.  I know this about myself so I fight it extra hard.  Part of this fighting extra hard sometimes leads to me cleaning the outside of the cup and neglecting the inside.  It pains me to say it but sometimes my time with my kids isn’t from the heart it’s just me faking it. 

The Point: I’m going to chill out and rest in grace. 

Instead of reading a million parenting books and trying to get my Christian-parenting down to a science I’m going to try to make it simple.  I am going to radically pursue a day by day relationship with Jesus.  One with bumps, bruises, failings, successes, gritty-honesty, shameful hypocrisy, and everything that comes from a desperate (and sometimes prideful not-so desperate) sinner relating to a sinless Savior. 

Same thing with my children.  I’m just going to be dad.  Probably the greatest thing that I can give my kiddos is to just be present with them.  I’m going to sin against them.  I’m going to be angry at times.  I’m going to discipline when I should have just let things slide.  I’m going to let things slide when I should have probably disciplined.  I’m probably never going to win a dad of the year award.  But Lord willing, I’m going to be there. 

Even if at the end of everything my children look back and say, “dad was pretty screwed up, he had a ton of faults, but he loved Jesus, he was growing, and he was always there for us.”  If that’s what they say I’ll be happy.  And I’d also like for them to say it with a smile on their face. 

I want my kids to smile. 

I want my kids to rest in grace because they learned how to do that from their daddy. 

I want my kids to see that God’s grace is sufficient and it’s something to be enjoyed. 

I want my kids to grow up in a home that dances (interpretively moves if you’re a Baptist) at the victory that Christ has already won instead of a home that mumbles, grumbles, and labors as if the gospel only won a partial victory. 

May grace reign!

Hoarding v. A Daily God

Mike Leake

I’m growing, but I still have pack-rat tendencies. 

There are still a few objects that I have a really hard time getting rid of: screws, bolts, springs, various parts that I have no idea what they are or what they are for, old shirts, ratty jeans, and “important” papers that will probably in reality remain unnecessary until well after Jesus returns. 

I keep these things because, hey…you never know when you might need them.  Which has proven itself true maybe about three times in my life.  There was that one time that I was able to use a spring, then I needed some ratty jeans for a paint job, and I just so happened to still have an “important” paper.  But mostly, it just piles up and makes it to where sometimes I cannot find things that I actually need. 

Now, this is not a HUGE problem.  I do not need to go on that Hoarders show…at least not yet.  But at root I have the same heart issue.  And I am guessing you might too. 

Hoarding in Exodus

We see this same tendency manifest itself in Exodus 16.  The people of Israel are starving in the wilderness.  God provides manna.  But he is only going to provide it every morning.  They cannot keep it.  (except before the Sabbath—when there will not be any that morning). 

If you try to hoard manna you get a mouth full of worms and stank when you try to chomp into in the morning. 

But even though they are warned of the worm and stank deal, there are some people that try to keep the manna for tomorrow…because, hey can I really be sure that it will be there in the morning?  And so some of them kept some manna around just in case. 

You see the reason why God does this is because He wants the Israelites to know that He is a daily God.  “His mercies are new every morning”.  He also wants them to know that their relationship of faith and trust is also a daily necessity.  Our God is an everyday is God.

Or at least He should be. 

A Daily God

But I must confess that often I do not have a daily experience of God’s grace.  My relationship with God is often more like a roller coaster, with extreme highs and lows.  I am convinced that our relationship with God is more like the Thunder River than the Screamin’ Eagle; a long, slow journey together through various dips, waterfalls, etc.  rather than a quick jaunt up and down huge inclines and declines. 

As I reflect on Exodus 16 I begin to wonder whether part of the reason why God doesn’t seem like a daily God is because I hoard.  Like the stupid servant in Luke 19 I bury talents, treasures, “manna”, in the hopes of being able to keep it…you know, just in case. 

God isn’t calling us to keep things for tomorrow, “just in case”.  God is calling us to live by faith everyday so that we can see the wonders of a relationship with a daily God.  Today I want to enjoy this day and not have a hoarding mentality that tries to protect tomorrow. 

For an amazing look at this Manna Principle I would suggest purchasing Ed Welch’s book Running Scared.

Review of Give Them Grace by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson

Mike Leake

Every church should have a small group for parents.  Maybe not to go over the latest Christian parenting book or fad, but simply to encourage one another that you aren’t the worse parent in the world and little Johnny is probably not Satan-incarnate. 

I read a good amount of Christian parenting books.  I read the ones that tell you “do X so that your kid will be successful”, and I also read the ones that are more geared towards parenting with the gospel as a grid.  Both leave me exhausted—convinced that I am going to mess up my kids.

You see, I absolutely love my children and I want give them grace.  More than anything I want them to drink deeply of God’s grace.  I want them to live holy, God-honoring lives.  I want my kids to be used by God in mighty ways.  And because of this I develop an idolatrous obsession with raising my kids to love the gospel.  I try to do everything perfectly because somewhere along the way I began believing the lie that my children’s salvation is largely dependant on my parenting. 

Not a How-To Book

I agreed to review Give Them Grace for Crossway primarily because I feel exhausted in my parenting.  It sounded like a much needed refreshment.  But it also sounded like something to give me a few “how-to’s” on applying grace in the lives of my children. 

What is ironic is that I really want is not a book that is saturated in the gospel but one that is saturated with a list of rules for successful gospel parenting.  How horrible that I have somehow turned gospel-centrality into a law or an idol that I bow to!

Because of this stupid obsession with getting a list of parenting tools to jam into my already bursting fanny-pack of Christian parenting tips, I felt a tad frustrated in the beginning of this book.  It was a breath of fresh air but I didn’t want a simple, “chill out, God is in control”.  I wanted simple answers that would put me in control of my children’s fate. 

Give Them Grace is not your typical parenting book.  In fact it actually identifies what is wrong with many “Christian” parenting books.  Most parents that read Christian parenting books do so with this mindset:

Their love for their children coupled with fear makes them want a guaranteed method of handling every situation with complete certainty.  They are serious about being godly parents, and they really don’t want to give themselves a pass if resting in grace somehow means that they aren’t holding up their part of the bargain.  They need grace to believe that there is no bargain, because if there were, they would never be able to uphold their part of it no matter how hard they try.  No bargains, no meritorious works, just grace.  Remember, parenting is not a covenant of works.  (159)

Sadly, many books are quick to offer exactly what a desperate parent desires; namely, how to control their children. 

Well, What DO I Do? 

If I abandon the “carrot and the stick” parenting method (you know motivating through rewards and punishments) then what do I do as a parent?  Fitzpatrick and Thompson, I believe, offer a simple answer: get grace yourself and extend it to your kids.  This book is an attempt to encourage parents to draw deeply from the well of grace themselves and then as the gospel-saturates their hearts and lives they will be in a much better position to instruct their children in the gospel. 

This echoes advice that I received from a professor in seminary.  His children were already grown and out of the home.  He was confessing to our class much of his “failed” parenting and how he regretted much of what he had done.  He shared with us the one thing he wishes he would have done as a Christian parent.  Ready for it?……Just chill out.  Rest in Grace; that was his advice. 

And it is this nugget of advice where this book really shines.  As a parent I found much refreshment from this book.  I was frustrated that it did not give me 10 simple steps of how to control my children for Jesus.  But at the end of the day I am refreshed and reminded of the beauty of the gospel and the mercy of God in making me a dad.  My children do not need me to beat them over the head with the gospel—what they really need is for me to get the gospel and let it overflow into their lives.  I need to chill out.  I need to rest in grace and enjoy myself—and hopefully in the process my children will catch on to the beauties of grace. 

One Negative

The authors are very quick to point out that their suggested dialogue in the book is just that—suggested dialogue.  But as I read through many of these I began feeling the weight of “saying it right” that is in many of the other parenting books.  In my opinion the others are guilty of trying to make every moment a teachable moment and actually not living in the grace that they are speaking of throughout the book. 

I had a real problem with this in the second chapter on “how to raise good kids”.  I absolutely agree with the underlying theology of this chapter.  I do believe that so much of our parenting is an attempt to raise good little Pharisee and not Jesus-loving sinners.  But I would have a hard time parroting some of their dialogue with my children:

Rather than telling Rebekah that she’s a good girl, we could say, “I noticed you shared your swing.  Do you know what that reminds me of?  How Christ shared his life with us.  I’m so thankful for God’s working in your life that way.  I know that neither of us would ever do anything kind if God wasn’t helping us.  I’m so thankful.  (42)

I get the intent behind this statement.  But I am not certain that it is really necessary to speak in such a way.  For one it does not do justice to the imago Dei.  Yes, ultimately we must push our affirmation of others upwards to reach its true origin—the goodness and grace of our Creator.  But there is a way of praising creation that echoes in praise to the Maker without explicitly debasing the creature. 

I tend to agree with John Bird’s caveat, when he says,

“this loose way of applying the gospel, especially when often repeated, takes the power out of the message and can weary the children. Something sadder than a child growing up never hearing the good news is a child who grows up hoping to never hear it again.

Honestly, the greatest danger will be for people like me that pick this book up looking for 10 ways to control your children with grace, try to follow the verbiage to a tee, and miss the overall message of the book. 

The overall message of this book is a much needed refreshment.  I need to be reminded that the gospel is for parents too.  I also need to be reminded that my children’s salvation is dependant upon the God of grace and not my parenting.  Yes, I want to parent to the glorify of God—but the way that happens is by drawing deeply from the well of grace. 

I would encourage all parents to read this book.  In fact I would almost encourage parents to get this book and stop reading so many other ones.  Chill out and rest in grace.  This book will, for the most part, help you to do just that.

You can buy it here.