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It can be frustrating when we feel like we've been struggling with the same problem our entire life. The Scriptures are repetitive too, and they reflect the reality that so much of life seems to repeat itself. Our job is to find one way to defeat our enemy, then use that strategy again and again as we win over our temptations and dig deeper into ourselves to take the evil out at its root.

(References: Daniel 4:10-37)

The hand in the Bible represents power, which is easy to understand, so to reach out or stretch out the hand means to exercise power, to put it to work. This is an image that's used a great deal in the stories of Moses, who repeatedly stretched out his hand (or his rod, which represents a more external kind of power) to bring plagues on Egypt and perform other miracles. This is a correspondence that makes sense, since we reach out constantly to use our hands to do our work.