What does Tribe teach about unexpected hardship?

At Tribe, the teaching on unexpected hardship starts with a pattern Brian Hunter draws from Exodus 17. Israel had just come through forty years of bondage, crossed the sea on dry ground, and watched water pour from a rock to quench a thirst that nearly broke them. Their bellies were full, their children were playing in the water, and then the Amalekites struck. Brian says that timing is the whole point. Hardship does not tend to arrive at random. It tends to arrive right when a season of provision or peace is finally underway.

Brian is careful to say this is not a reason to live in dread. He anchors the teaching in John 16:33, where Jesus says plainly that in this life there will be trouble, but to take heart because He has overcome the world. Brian puts it simply: "Life comes with Amalekite raids. Jesus himself has said it." The lesson is not fearful vigilance but honest realism, knowing that sudden opposition is part of the story without letting that knowledge steal the peace of the good seasons.

The teaching also surfaces something less obvious about how opposition shows up. It does not always look like a threat. Brian walked through a season when he and Lissa had already put their yes on the table to go to Mongolia, and within days received both a promotion and an unsolicited job offer from another church. Neither was bad in itself, but both would have pulled them off what they had already committed to. Alongside that, the story of Moses on the hill, arms raised, Aaron and Hur holding them up, gave the congregation a picture of what meeting hardship actually requires. Moses holding a staff above his head had no obvious connection to the soldiers fighting below, yet, as Brian says, "Your obedience in one area unlocks victory in another area." The victory was never about strength. It was about surrender and obedience, which Brian notes is precisely what the enemy cannot tolerate.

Taught from Exodus 17:8-16 · John 16:33 · 1 John 4:4 · Philippians 4:6-8