Lesson Learned?

I can't get something out of my mind from yesterday's reading from the Old Testament. The passages were from chapters 17 and 18 of Exodus and involve two episodes from Moses' life.

The first is the account of the Israelite defeat of the Amalekites at Rephidim (Ex. 17:8-13). You may recall the story. Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, while Moses, Aaron and Hur climbed to the top of a hill to watch. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites prevailed. Eventually, Moses got tired so Aaron and Hur had to take a stone and put it under Moses so he could sit on it. And then as the day wore on, Aaron and Hur had to hold up Moses' arms - one on one side and one on the other. In the end, Joshua and the Israelites prevailed. But they never would have been able to with Moses "going it alone."

The second story follows closely on the heels of the first one. In that story, Jethro, Moses' father-in-law comes to visit him and rebukes Moses for trying to do everything on his own (Ex. 18:1-27). The wise father-in-law says, "What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone" (Ex. 18:17-18). Jethro urges Moses to delegate the work that needs to be done to other capable leaders, keeping only the "difficult cases" for himself.

As I look back on my work at my former pastorate I realize that I did a poor job of delegating. I'm not sure if it was because I liked the accolades of people for being such a capable person, or if I was such a control freak that I refused to let others do things because I didn't think they'd do them to my specifications. Then again, it could simply be that I didn't have the charisma or skill to get people to want to do the things that needed doing to begin with. Truth is, it's probably a mixture of all that - plus a bunch of other stuff (my version of a technical term).

Regardless, we developed quite a culture of co-dependence there. I needed people to need me, and the people apparently needed to be needy. I knew that then, and I know that now. The real question is, why couldn't I do something about it? The only thing I can offer in response is that at least I realized I had a problem (then and now), and as is often said, the simple fact that you realize you have a problem is the first step towards solving it. I look forward to working on that in days to come, Lord willing.