Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Messy Masterpiece podcast with Chad and and me. I'm back. She's back at it, ladies and gents. The weight is over. The veil has been torn open. My wife is back. Praise the Lord. He has shown favor upon us in our ears.

Anyways, we're going to be continuing from the devotional that started reading yesterday. It's actually a four day little devotional series on the Bible app and so Tories, can I go and do that?

Yes. So if y'all are reading along, we're in Exodus 17 or reading verses 11 through 13. It says, the Israelites outfought the amalakites as long as Moses held up his arms.

After a while, his arms were so tired that Aaron and her got a rot for him to sit on. They stood beside him and supported his arms. That's how Joshua defeated the amalakites.

So this devotional is titled, acknowledge your limitations. And it says, standing on a hill with a staff of your head is not a strategic way to win a battle.

And yet, that was essentially Moses' plan when he instructed Joshua to go fight a powerful kingdom. But his actions during this fight not only helped the Israelites to feed their enemy, they also illustrate two healthy ways to acknowledge your limitations in uncertain situations.

The first is, cling to the one who knows your future. As long as Moses held a staff above his head, the Israelites won. But as soon as he lowered it, they began to lose. By lifting his staff, Moses symbolically acknowledged God was always with them and he alone was in control.

Like Moses, when you find yourself in a battle, you know you're ill-equipped to handle. Look at the situation in front of you and observe what's going on around you. But don't let that stop you from clinging to God's authority and pursuing what he's promised you.

2. Allow trusted people to come alongside you. As the fight continued, Moses' arms weakened and he could not support the Israelite army without help. That's when he trusted friends to step in. By holding him up, they helped Israel achieve victory.

Moses wasn't created to endure hard moments alone and neither were you. What if your current limitation is actually an invitation for people to partner with you in the God glorifying story he wants to tell through you.

The victories achieved in uncertain seasons are rarely due to our own strength. They're a result of clinging to God and relying on others to support us. It is the faithfulness of God that sees us through the storms of life. And when we acknowledge that, we create space for God to show up and show off in our weaknesses.

And this devotional also has some reflection questions. If you want to think about these or write these down, I will read them out for you. It says, what situations are you facing that feel too big to handle?

And then it says, which trusted people can you ask to come alongside of you? And then in what specific way will you cling to God's authority today?

Yeah, I'm a big fan of these two solutions, which is number one, run to God and lean into his power to help in a super stressful or overwhelming moment or really in any moment.

And then also find people around you who are willing to support you on your journey as you pursue God's calling on your life.

I know that God offers that to us too, where we may not see those people right now, but these are people that we should be praying for and people that we should be seeking to come alongside us because we absolutely have limits.

And that's not a bad thing. We just need to acknowledge those limits and realize that, oh, wow, this is a chance for God to bring someone into my life that can help do what God's going to do in my life.

It doesn't need to be just me. I'm not the star of the show. God's glory is the thing that needs to be shown off, not my own ability.

And so the more the merrier, find people that you can invite into your life that can help you as you walk forward into the calling that God has for you.

Yeah, I really think it comes back down to humility. You know, and I know we were talking about that in a podcast recently, but have the humility enough to ask for help.

You know, when you're praying, like, God, what do you need me to do? And then he gives you that task, which obviously in most cases, you're not going to be able to accomplish in your own strength or you shouldn't be trying.

You're going to need God's strength and you're going to need, you know, that cloud around you of people who see the vision, who want to glorify God with you, who want to lock arms and run this race.

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