SoulFit: Strong Doesn't Mean Having it All Together

We kick off Strong Women Soft Hearts by redefining strength through Scripture and real life, because holding it all together is not the same as being strong. We challenge ourselves to trade self sufficiency for dependence on God and the courage to ask for help. 
• redefining a “strong woman” beyond perfection and performance 
• naming invisible burdens that make life feel heavy 
• Martha and Mary as a picture of distraction vs devotion 
• the myth that strong women do not need help 
• Moses, Aaron, and Hur as proof that support changes outcomes 
• “the hand of God” as a simple way to lift someone up 
• the myth that tears equal weakness, and why Jesus cried 
• the lie that you are the only one struggling 
• what biblical strength looks like in daily life 
I look forward to seeing you right here next time on Soul Fit. 

https://aarondegler.com/

Transcript

Welcome To SoulFit

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to SoulFit. Thank you for joining us today. If this is your first time in SoulFit, each week we just join our live calls. I call as I share a little scripture and how we apply that to our everyday life. So again, thank you for joining SoulFit. Let's join our live call.

Strong Does Not Mean Perfect

SPEAKER_00 0:14

So this week does start week one, a five-week series called Strong Women Soft Hearts. So this week we're going to talk about strong doesn't mean having it all together. So it might be a relief to some if you think strong means having it all together. It does not. And we're going to talk a little bit about what that looks like. I think a lot of times when someone says strong or says a strong woman, like even if I were to say to you, what is a strong woman? You might have some pictures in mind. In other words, some thoughts may come to mind. Maybe she's independent. Maybe she's successful. Maybe she handles everything. Maybe she doesn't complain. Maybe she always shows up. Maybe she never quits. So maybe all of those things you might be thinking of maybe that's some of the things that are a characteristic of a strong woman. When I think if if you could label those things, those might be some of the things you might be thinking. I mean, you might have some other thoughts. And all of those are great qualities. But sometimes we might accept the definition of strength that God never really gave us. You know, some might believe strong, being a strong woman means never crying, holding in your emotions. Don't cry. Don't let them see you cry. Maybe it means never struggling. Maybe it means never asking for help. Maybe it means never showing weakness. I'm strong. I can do anything. If I ask for help, that's showing some weakness. Maybe it is holding everything together for everyone else. And so when we do those things, when we might say, Well, I don't cry, I don't struggle, don't ask for help, never try to show weakness. Is what happens is that weight becomes really heavy, becomes really heavy, and it's hard to function sometimes. Imagine if if you had something really heavy laying on your chest on the floor. It makes it hard to get up. It would make it hard to get moving, it would make it hard to get going. And so when we think about that, what are some of those invisible burdens, some of those invisible things that are heavy on us that make it difficult to move around? Sometimes it's those things, and it's not saying that those things we dislike, we're just saying that it's heavy. It makes it a challenge.

The Invisible Burdens We Carry

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Sometimes it's taking care of our families while we're trying to manage careers. As we get a little older, then we have aging parents, and it's helping our aging parents. Sometimes it's supporting friends. Sometimes it's serving at church because sometimes if you serve at church, if you look around, it's kind of like a lot of places. If you start serving in a capacity somewhere at an organization, you volunteer church, you find that you get asked to do that all the time because the there's a limited number of people that want to serve. And I I heard a great thing the other day in a sermon I was listening to. It said, if everybody in church served like you do, what would the church look like? And so that was a thought provoking. It's very thought provoking. Yeah, because either I mean it, it's I mean, it just goes it either side, it's just very thought-provoking. So I thought that was interesting. Uh I thought that was a good question. And sometimes it's just or that that heaviness looks like trying to keep everybody's else's life going, keep them moving. And then somewhere along the lines, we hear that we tell ourselves this if I stop, everything falls apart. I'm the one holding all together. So we keep on going, even when we're exhausted, not just tired, but exhausted, physically, mentally, emotionally exhausted. Even when we're hurting, I'll still I'll still keep going. Even when we need help, I'll just keep going. Because if I don't keep going, everything's gonna fall apart. And so they keep carrying the weight because sometimes we're confused with that strength with self-sufficiency. I gotta keep going because it's all about what I can do. But God never asks us to be self-sufficient, he asks us to be dependent. Dependent on Him.

Martha And Mary On Priorities

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Ask yourself, Am I Martha? She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations she had to be made. She came to him and asked, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? She's doing nothing. She's sitting down, Lord. That's not in there, that's me. Like she's she's just goofing around. Like, I'm the one I'm doing all the work. I'm doing all the work, killing myself here, Lord. And and she's and she, you know, says what a lot of us say, tell her to help me. Tell her to get up, stop being lazy, get moving. Lord, you're I mean, you're the one that can do that. Tell her to get on her way and help me. And then the response, Martha, Martha, the Lord answers, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed, or indeed, only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her. So the Lord says, She ain't going nowhere. She's gonna keep sitting where she's sitting because she's the one doing the right thing. You're the one worried about everything else, and as I said earlier, but Martha was distracted by all of the preparations that had to be made. How many times do we get distracted by all the other things? When the Lord Himself said, but indeed, only one. Was Martha a weak person? No, she was strong, she was responsible, she was serving, she was doing all the right things. It wasn't that she was doing anything wrong in all the things that she was doing, but yet Jesus pointed out to her that something pretty important, I think that we all do, that she was carrying burdens he never asked her to carry. He came into their house and never asked her to do all that. He never said, Can you do this? Can you do that? He did, he asked, he was wanting one thing, asking for one thing. And Mary did that one thing. While Martha was trying to do all the other things that was never asked of her. And she was trying to do it all on her own strength because she said, Lord, tell my sister to get up and help me. This is a lot of work. Because again, she was trying to do it on her own strength and she was getting tired. It was a lot to do. And I think sometimes we can get busy in serving everyone else and neglect the one who actually sustains us. We can get busy just like Martha, and we go, I'd never be like that. If Martha, if Jesus was sitting in my house, I would have I'd be like Mary. But isn't Jesus just a thought away, a prayer away? But we get busy and days and weeks go by and go, oh man, I forgot to talk to him. But but if he was in my house, that'd be different. But he's right there, and we get busy in life, and it's not that we are weak, but he's asking us for his strength to be in him.

Strength Includes Asking For Help

SPEAKER_00 8:53

And and sometimes we have some myths when it comes to strength. Sometimes it's strong women don't need help, they don't need any help. And many times we can struggle with asking for help because sometimes it might feel like failure. Like I can't handle it all, and I'm supposed to handle it all. And so we feel like a failure. But yet, even in scripture, God designed people to need one another. Have you ever heard the saying it takes a village? That's true. It takes a village to raise a child, it takes sometimes it takes a village. Even Moses needed help. So in Exodus 17, 10 through 13, this is pretty neat. So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered. And Moses, Aaron, and her went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning. But whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were were winning. So when Moses' hands grew tired, they, which is Aaron and Her, took a stone and put it under him for him to sit on. Aaron and Heard held her held his hands up, one on one side, one on the other, so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword. So anytime Moses' arms fell, that Israelite started losing. So Aaron and Heard, can you imagine one on each side holding them up? And as long as they held him up, then they won, they were winning. Would Moses have ever been able to do that on his own? No. And not only would Moses not have been able to do that on his own, the Israelites would have lost. They would have lost the battle. Because if Moses didn't ask for help, if he was too proud to ask for help, what would have been lost? Something great would have been lost. But yet, by Aaron and her on either side simply saying, Let me help you, Moses. Let me just hold up your arms. Nothing painful, nothing challenging. Let us just stand here and hold you up and put a stone under you so you can sit. And so much was gained from that. And sometimes maybe we just need when we become tired, we just need somebody to lean on. Somebody just hold us up.

The Hand Of God Lift

SPEAKER_00 11:38

When I learned this from a guy a long time ago, and Kim and I used to use this when we were riding bikes. I was talking to this guy, and he said, Well, when my wife's going up a hill or she's kind of struggling, he says, I use the hand of God. I said, The hand of God? He said, Yeah, he said, I'll get next to her and gently put my hand on her back. And he said, When I do, it makes all the difference in the energy she has to use and the speed she can go. And I said, There's no way just by gently putting your hand on her back that that makes all the difference. So Kim and I tried it. And it makes all the difference. And Kim will tell you, it makes all the difference. And he said, I call it the hand of God because it's just a gentle touch that changes everything. And so sometimes that's all we need. Sometimes we just need a prayer. Sometimes we just need to say something like, I'm struggling. Sometimes we just need to ask, can you help me? Sometimes we just say, I can't carry this by myself. And maybe I'm struggling, or can you help me? And maybe all the help is is holding an arm up. Maybe all it is is running one errand. Maybe all it is is saying a few words. But the ask is so difficult. But what we need is is sometimes just a gentle touch. It's just the hand of God that is that makes all the difference to another person. Make all the difference to us.

Tears And Struggle Are Human

SPEAKER_00 13:22

There's sometimes a myth is that strong women never cry. Don't cry, don't let them see you cry. Because again, we take that sometimes as a sign of weakness. And tears aren't weakness. Um, if we look in scripture, Pannah cried, David cried, Jeremiah cried, Jesus cried. And if tears were weakness, would have Jesus ever cried? No. There really a lot of times they're evidence that we deeply care about things. We deeply care about something. And sometimes when we hold that back, we're stopping ourselves from feeling things. God never asked us to numb our emotions. He didn't ask that. He invites us to bring them to him in Psalms 56, 8. It says, Record my misery, list my tears on your scroll. Are they not in your record? There for he knows all of our tears, every single one. It's not wasted. He knows them. And the third myth is I think sometimes we think strong women never struggle. I shouldn't have a struggle. I shouldn't struggle. But really, the the truth is that everyone is carrying something. We've we we talk about this at length because I always want you to keep hearing that, that everybody struggles with something. And is what the devil tells us, it whispers real softly. That and it gets real close and says, Hey, you're the only one struggling. No one else is struggling, it's just you. And that's the devil speaking to us that you're the only one. But the truth is that the devil is whispering that into everybody's ear. You're the only one. You're the only one. And so we're we're afraid to share that struggle because we think I'm the only one. And conversation after conversation after conversation, you're not the only one. Even if that is being whispered to you, you are not the only one. You're not the only one with that struggle. There's been other ones in your life that have had that struggle, that can know what it's like. And sometimes the strongest people often fight the battles no one else sees. Paul struggled, Elijah struggled, David struggled. Struggling isn't a sign that your faith is failing. It's really struggling is where your faith starts to grow. And sometimes we get the struggle because maybe our faith does need to grow a little bit. It's not because it's failing. So sometimes biblical strength, it's not having

Choosing Biblical Strength And Prayer

SPEAKER_00 16:16

all the answers. It's not never feeling overwhelmed. I think sometimes we want that to go away. It doesn't. It's not pretending everything is fine. It's not carrying everyone's burden. But what it really is, is trusting that God, trusting God when you don't understand. That's biblical strength. It's taking the next step even when you're afraid and not sure what that next step looks like. It's admitting you need help. That's a strong person saying, Yes, I need some help. It's continuing to believe even when life feels really heavy and feels it's kind of like those heavy blankets, only you don't sleep so well when you got that kind of heaviness on you. And it's about being honest about who are we? Those are some biblical truths that we have to stand on. And so the real question is, and and I challenge you, is what burden are you maybe carrying that nobody knows about? That's been really silent, that that maybe is is recent, maybe it's been a long one, maybe it's been a challenge that you I want to stay strong, I can handle this, I can do this, but it's still a burden. So the challenge is what if you stopped pretending everything was okay and you showed some strength and you let it out in some tears, you asked for some help, you asked for some prayers, you asked for some things. So maybe it's who do you trust that you could be honest with? You pray about it, and who could you be honest with and share those and and and dive into that biblical strength? Not what the world says looks like strength, but what is the biblical strength and all of those things that we talked about about your tears, about opening up, about leaning on him and not getting distracted by the busyness. And he only wants one, and it's for you to lean on him. And part of that is lean on him and ask, hear this over and over and over again. I'm reminded about it. Blessings and different things don't just fall from the sky. Guess what they happen through? Guess who God uses? He uses people, he uses people for those things. So by asking help is his way of being able to answer our prayers because we get to, he gets to do that through people. And just like it takes a village to raise a child, it takes other people to help God. God uses those people that you're reaching out to that you're showing I'm not strong, that I'm biblically strong, and so this is what I'm asking for, this is what I need, this is what I would like. Can you help me through this? Because I've had this burden for so long. And so I just challenge you. Are you have you been worldly strong? And if so, it's now time to be biblically strong. And to the world, that's gonna look a lot different. But to God, that's you sitting at his feet like Mary and saying, I'm here for one purpose. I'm here for you, I'm here to listen to you. No matter what the world thinks I need to be doing, like Martha, and they'll say, Come help me, and say, No, this is where I'm this is what I was intended to do, is sit at the feet and be still and listen. And so that's my challenge to you, is is to, if there is something, apply that biblical strength that will look worldly weak, but you will know that it's biblically strong. So that's my challenge for each one of us. Uh, end us up in prayer. Sorry, one a couple minutes over, and then we'll be on with our fantastic Friday. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing us all together, Lord. I just pray to give each one of us the strength to uh do as Mary did and sit at your feet and let the busyness around her around us go. And I just pray for that biblical strength that that you offer us in your scripture through the examples you've given us. Um, I just pray that we lean on that, we lean on you, and we lean on that biblical strength because Lord, that is what heals us, that's what sets us free, that's what lightens our load, Lord, is you and that biblical strength. I just pray for that for each one of us that we may do that and our burden be lightened through that. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. And thank you to be you for joining us on Soulfit. I look forward to seeing you right here next time on Soul Fit.