Exodus 18:18

Jethro had a simple solution which had evidently not occurred to Moses. He tells Moses that this continual labour would wear him out, and the people too.

The real question was not whether the thing was too heavy for him (verse 18). It was this: is not God able to strengthen him to bear it all? It may have been humility in Moses to appoint men to share the burden of judging the people. But it was humility at the cost of faith. It was the fruit of Jethro's careful wisdom, who looked not at the power of God, but at the weakness of Moses. No doubt it was part of God's wise counsel that able men should be chosen to judge small matters, bringing only the great ones to Moses. But here this great servant of God failed in faith.

Moses was not asked to bear the people alone, for God was with him. They were not too heavy for God. It was He that was bearing them; Moses was but the instrument... This is where the servants of Christ constantly fail. The failure is all the more dangerous because it looks like humility. Shrinking from heavy responsibility looks like self-distrust and deep humility of spirit. But all we need to ask is this: has God laid that responsibility on me? If so, He will certainly be with me in sustaining it... With Him, the weight of a mountain is nothing; without Him, the weight of a feather is overwhelming.

Jethro said, "I will give you advice, and God will be with you." Would it not be better to say, "God will give you advice, and I will be with you"? He was so sure of his own counsel that he did not advise Moses to ask counsel of God. Moreover, Moses himself ought to have had concern to first ask God's counsel. If God intended Moses to do all the work himself, He would certainly give him strength for it.

God taught Moses this lesson later, in the book of Numbers, when Moses complained to the Lord in the very words Jethro had planted in his mind. The Lord heard his complaint and told him to bring seventy men alongside him to help in his work... Though the Lord granted his desire, there was no extra supply of strength for the government of Israel. Moses was now called to share with the seventy the Spirit he already had... Once a word of distrust or complaint gets into our hearts, it is not easily driven out... For example, we feel weary in service, and low in spirit through weariness. How often will Satan suggest that we are doing too much, going beyond our strength! If we accept the temptation, the thought may hamper us for years.

In His grace God overruled everything that passed between Moses and Jethro about the judging of the people, and turned it to the people's good. Even so, Moses was not acting in strict agreement with the mind of God.

He was truly that Servant raised up to Israel "like Moses." The people in the wilderness came to Moses daily with their problems, and "stood by him from morning until evening." But in Galilee there was no Jethro to plead with Jesus, no one to warn Him in love, if not in understanding: "You will certainly wear yourselves out… the thing is too heavy for you." Consumed with zeal for the Father's will, the Lord was the Ideal Servant of God.