Hold On, Reinforcements Are Coming!

Hold on, reinforcements are coming!, is a phrase that is written on the first page of my journals as I start a new one.  In a time 8 years ago when I was at my wits end, had lost hope and was dragged to rock bottom, where the dragging party still hadn’t realized we had hit rock bottom a good while ago, I was told these words.  One Sunday morning as I was dropping my boys off in the children’s church area, which was a high school locker room for our church at the time, I passed the pastor like many other Sundays. He would always ask “How is everything” or some variation in passing with my response always being “Great” and a fake smile until this particular Sunday. On this Sunday with full intentions of smiling and saying “Great!” when asked how it was going I blurted out ” I can’t do it anymore, I just can’t go on like this anymore!!!” In that moment he stopped, I remember his words like it was yesterday, he told me God had given him a word for me, he didn’t know what it meant or how to give it to me until that very moment… it was “Hold On, Reinforcements Are Coming”.

I have held on to those words many, many times through the years. I have always paid particular attention to the Hold On and Are Coming part until here recently, well until the past week. We had Communion a couple Sundays ago and I was having one of those I don’t want to go to church or any where else for that matter kinda days, the ones where you just want to hide under a blanket on the couch and feel sorry for your self all day!  It came our turn to come forward and pray with one of the Deacons and I had a million and one things I could throw at him to pray for. This particular man and his family I have looked at as being one of those “reinforcements” that God sent me 8 years ago, when we approached he began by saying that as he scanned the room that morning he spotted us and said he knew God would send us to his line for him to pray with us and one word came to his mind “reinforcements”. As I have pondered and looked into this word over the past week, God has revealed a lifelong design that is not just a means for rescue in a time of need, but a structural necessity within our very creation.

Reinforcement is defined as the action or process of strengthening. For the past eight years I have only looked at reinforcements as the people that have entered my life to help during a trying time. As God has recently revealed to me the trying time itself was the reinforcement within because through all the seasons of the last eight years, ups, downs and in betweens, I have been strengthened, mentally, physically, emotionally, and most importantly spiritually. In the last eight years these reinforcements would be what would strengthen my relationship with God and would be guiding every step closer I took to Him. I have no doubt I would not have the hope, faith or fear in God that I have now if not for these reinforcing seasons that have passed.

When God gives you a word (literally a word lol)I have learned you get to the root of it, go to the beginning, the original text. The Hebrew word tied to reinforcement is EZER and is translated it the bible as Helper, Protector, it is used over twenty times in the Old Testament and is used the first time in Genesis 2:18-20 to describe Eve and other parts to describe Gods prominent protection over His people and power as their rescuer. In the english language help can be interpreted in a board range of ways, the use of ezer in the Old Testament though was only used in extremely important and powerful acts of rescue and support. I can not look past the importance of this word being used to describe the first woman and the important example set as it is used in reference to God and His people. He helped them in their need, protected them in their short comings they were His no matter what and He would never turn against them, never pull away.

It is important to be that helper, protector the one who strengthens another in our relationships. God created woman to be ezer to man, to help him, protect him, to reinforce/strengthen him. She is not a helper because she is weaker or beneath but is one with her man because she reinforces all the qualities that make him the man he is. Reinforcements..EZERs…makes things stronger, better, they are solid and long standing, ONE with the foundation.  Reinforcements are built-in for a reason and serve a great purpose, removing them jeopardizes the entire structure. True reinforcements never make a structure weaker nor do they jeopardize the integrity, but offer support in just the right spots to strengthen, help and protect the structure from ever truly breaking and falling. Ezer is used twice describing Eve and another sixteen times describing God as a helper/protector/reinforcement to the Israelites. God made Eve to be Adams protector in the same way God was Israel’s protector. I believe the connection is important and a lot can be learned from it.

When I look at the deepness of the word used and where and how it was used, I see the true value in the role of Helper. As a ezer, a woman is not just a helper but a mighty helper and protector, she has been given the ability to see the enemy in times of danger, and because of this has the duty to strengthen and protect the marriage. So why did the serpent go in to deceive Eve if she was a mighty helper and protector?……. because by doing so he was removing Adams reinforcements, his strength, his protection and by succeeding created The Fall not only in the structure of the covenant but also in all humanity.

Hold on, reinforcements are coming!

Are you being a Reinforcement or allowing the serpent to crumble the structure God has entrusted to you?