That’s Gonna Leave A Mark

We sat in a circle with Bibles open on our laps and scribbled words on our papers. We’ve been studying the life of Moses and today we discussed that crazy day when Joshua was called to fight the Amalekites and Moses stood on top of a mountain all day holding his staff up in the air.

Weird.

We read about how when Moses lowered the staff, the Amalekites would begin to win, and when he raised the staff up, then his people, the Israelites, would be the victors. The staff was a visual represtentaion of God’s power.

We studied that as the day wore on, Moses’ arms grew weary (who can blame him!) and so he pulled up a rock, took a seat, and had his buddy, Hur, and his brother, Aaron, hold his arms up for him.

I don’t claim to understand how this all worked. Like I said, it’s kind of strange and not something I see every day. Or ever.

But I believe it.

And what’s more, I was struck in our study by the fact that God actually asks Moses to record what happened that day so that Joshua and the rest of the Israelites (and you and me too!) would know about this whole staff and tired arms thing. And even more important than that, so we’d all see how God led His people to victory in a powerful way, like only He could.

Basically, God wanted Moses to be sure to tell the story.

To not let the memory of that day fade with the setting sun.

Poor Moses didn’t have the great tools we have today to do such telling.

He couldn’t tweet:

@EgyptnoMoe Just helped my army win a big battle… but boy are my “armies” sore now!
#punintended #AaronandHuraremywingmen

He couldn’t blog:

Check on my new post “My Triceps are Killing Me but the Amalekites Aren’t” over at http://www.wanderingwildernessramblings.com

He couldn’t even update his status on Facebook:

Check out this group selfie of my bro Aaron, my buddy Hur and me. Long day helping Joshua win a battle. Can’t win ’em all, but we sure won this one! 😉 By the way, this staff sure is something!!

But technology, tools, convenience, or not, God asked Moses to record the events of the day and to pass it down to others.

God asked Moses to tell the story.

I see this theme in Scripture elsewhere. In Deuteronomy, God tells his people to impress God’s laws on their children. To talk about God and his law in their daily lives. To tell the stories of God’s work in their history. To pile a group of stones in a location where God did something and when their kids asked, “Hey Mom, what’s that pile of rocks for?” to tell them the story.

Because when we tell the story, we tell what God has done.

And that’s gonna leave a mark.