Listen

The Lord said to Moses, “Gather before me seventy men from Israel’s elders, whom you know as elders and officers of the people. Take them to the meeting tent, and let them stand there with you.”

So Moses went out and told the people the Lord’s words. He assembled seventy men from the people’s elders and placed them around the tent. The Lord descended in a cloud, spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and placed it on the seventy elders. When the spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but only this once.

Numbers 11:16, 24-25

Think

If we are struggling with the vulnerability necessary to be good guests and receive help when we need it, then we need look no further than Moses to be our guide. This chosen prophet, the one who encountered God in the burning bush, who confronted Pharaoh to demand that he let the slaves go free, whose hand stretched over the Red Sea to part the waters – even he needed the help of seventy elders to serve God’s people.

If Moses wasn’t afraid to ask for help, why are we? Are we so caught up in our pride? In our sense of superiority, thinking our way is the best way, or even the only way, to follow Jesus? Or do we feel guilty asking others to help us?

Jordan Haynie Ware

Pray

O God, your unfailing providence sustains the world we live in and the life we live: Watch over those, both night and day, who work while others sleep, and grant that we may never forget that our common life depends upon each other's toil; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Book of Common Prayer (1979)

Go

Breathe upon us, breath of God,

young and old alike.

Send us forth, gifted with your power,

To serve your people.