yet they remained.

"the history of abraham's people is, of course, one of unfaithfulness as well as faithfulness, yet they remained faithful enough so that they might be truthful about their unfaithfulness."

-hauerwas.

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sometimes i feel the only good and valuable thing i have to offer is my honesty, my vulnerability, my truth.

and perhaps that is enough.

perhaps.

tension.

sometimes the worst thing for faith is our ideals.

the beauty of following Jesus does not grow from His removal of life's messiness;

the weight and the power and the glory of following Jesus manifests in the fact that amongst all of life's chaos and failure and struggle and tension,

the power of the resurrection, the living Word, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the gentle One, Victor and Shepherd and Defender, King of all kings,

MESSIAH,

resides with us in the midst of it,

and breathes, speaks, creates,
resurrects

new life.

(amen).

here am i.

i want to be like elijah,
full of zeal.

i want to be like isaiah,
undone by the high and holy vision of God,
answering, 'here am i.'

i want to be like leah,
turning my wounds into praise.

ABIDE.

such a beautiful and enduring,

such a challenging
and truth-filled
and exacting

kind of word.

burden.

as prophets,

we are overwhelmed by our sympathy for God,
we are burdened by our sympathy for man.

as prophets,

we stand before the people and plead for God,
we stand before God and plead for the people.

as prophets,

we are wearied by the heaviness of sin,
we are carried by the force of this mighty Love.

our great Defender.

"in the Hebrew scriptures, satan was the angel who was the counsel for the prosecution against men in the presence of God. he was the adversary of men." -w. barclay.

i came across this passage in a revelation commentary this morning, and i found it interesting to think of satan in this way, as a prosecutor in the presence of God, bringing before heaven all the evil things that humanity has done and bringing to God's attention the selfishness that consistently resides in our hearts.

our accuser.

highlighting what we once were,
emphasizing our crooked choices,
and reminding us of all we do not deserve.

and it was such a beautiful and moving thing for me to then compare that image to Jesus.

our beautiful, compassionate, generous, powerful, victorious, and faultless Defender, sitting at the right hand of God, intimately speaking with Him on our behalf.

making hollow all those accusations of guilt.

and God, the great and merciful Judge, choosing to listen to the voice and the witness of His Son, the great Messiah of humanity, rather than the adversary.

no longer is it our own lives that stand as witness.

it is now the life of the unblemished Lamb, Son of the MOST HIGH GOD, that stands on trial as evidence in the Kingdom.

and the verdict comes in: not guilty.

and the verdict comes in:

GRACE.

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"the forgiveness which is in the Cross has left satan the accuser no possible accusation to make." -w. barclay.

"be strong in the grace of Jesus." -paul.

here am i.

the past 2 years came close to killing my hope.

time and again, the months and the days and the hours spent wrestling with sin and its pain knocked me hard to my knees.

and yet.

from this humble kneeling, i am learning to receive God's gift of glory, and come to know in full that it is stronger, fuller, and more vibrant than the rest, and that it will lift me up again, freely, and with everlasting attention.

pay attention.

"and we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."

-2 peter 1.

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it seems we are living in a time of prophecy. of this i have no doubt. there are things stirring under the surface, and the Spirit of God is moving in new and different ways in our time. i feel it in my heart, my breath, my bones.

which is why the above passage grabbed me and shook me up a bit this morning. because there are a lot of people saying a lot of things in our time, and not all that is being uttered is truth.

some of what is being said is merely a skewed and manipulated version of God's message, and some of what is being said is the pure and fiery will of God spoken through people carried along by the Holy Spirit.

and often it can be very difficult to discern the difference between the two.

and in the midst of it all, my heart cries out for the pure and living voice of God.

i want to be able to discern what is true.

i want to have ears that hear.

which is why i feel such an urgency to KNOW THE WORD, to root the sayings of these prophets and kings and servants and missionaries, and above all else, this Mighty God, and to learn them well.

i want to be able to hear my Shepherd's voice when my Shepherd speaks, and to follow Him when and where He leads.

i want to be able to discern truth through the knowledge of the Word of God.

i want, as our Rabbi and Messiah prayed that night on gethsemane, to be SANCTIFIED through the truth.

and so each morning i will rise early, and each night i will go to bed late, pouring over and devouring this blessed Book.

because God is moving.

and God is speaking.

and I want to be able to discern which words are His.

wings.

"But for you who revere My name a sun of victory shall rise to bring healing." -malachi 3.

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to bring healing - lit. "with healing in the folds of its garments"; others "with healing in its wings." - jps study Bible, notes.

-----

In biblical times the corners of a Jewish man's outer garment were known as the "wings," and they were adorned with tassles, reminding the people of their covenant with God - that they were called to be set apart and obedient to Him. There was also a common belief among Jews of Biblical times, because of the above-mentioned verse, that when the Messiah came, the corners of His garments (wings) would carry healing power.

Now, think back to Jesus. Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us the following story;

"Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak (kanaf, corner, wings). She said to herself, 'if I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.' Jesus turned and saw her. 'Take heart, daughter,' he said, 'your faith has healed you.' And the woman was healed from that moment." -matthew 9.

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The woman in this passage doesn't just think that Jesus has the power to heal, she believes that He IS the Messiah, the one who fulfills the prophecy of Malachi 3. No wonder He praises her faith - she knew who He was, the anointed One of God - and therefore she believed and trusted that He could powerfully heal her.

And He DID powerfully heal her.

because Rabbi Jesus came to earth with the power of healing in His wings. He put on flesh and entered into the world to walk among us, and grace broke through and the sun of victory rose with His coming.

Redemption and healing stand within our grasp, ready to be realized. They come with this man, Jesus, and the power and the love of God that He carries with Him.

He is the One about whom it was written.

Messiah.
Savior.
King.

He is the One.

Come and see!
Come and see!

darkness.

"and the LORD led the sea with a mighty east wind all night, and He made the sea dry ground, and the waters were split apart. And the Israelites came into the sea on dry land, the waters a wall to them on their right and on their left. And the Egyptians pursued them and came after them, all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his riders, into the sea. And it happened in the morning watch that the LORD looked out over the camp of Egypt in a pillar of fire and cloud and He panicked the camp of Egypt..." -exodus 14.

-----

in the morning watch. By Israelite reckoning, the last third of the night, from 2:00 am to 6:00 am. The Hebrews, then, would have marched through the Sea of Reeds during the night, literally plunging into the dark, for the pillar of fire would have been behind them rather than leading them on their way. -robert alter.

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startling.
amazing.

the israelites, terrified and fleeing the egyptians, walked through that wall of water in complete darkness. and they could not see because God was behind them, DEFENDING AND PROTECTING THEM.

a needed lesson for me today, as I cautiously plant one foot in front of the other.

-----

"The LORD shall do battle for you, and you, you shall keep still." -exodus 14.

maturity.

the ability to wait for things.

the fortitude to delay pleasure for a time.

the courage to hope that good fruit grows and builds out of suffering.

the active remembering of mountaintops while low in the valleys.

the rejoicing in dry and painful deserts, knowing deep down in the GUTS that God is moving.

trusting that He is seeing to it; His plan and all its details.

here.
now.

choosing, believing, declaring, and clinging to the hope that God is always working.

even when we can't see.

---

and it is so.

the word amen means and it is so.

I forget that sometimes.

normally I pose the word amen to God as a plea or a question, rather than a sanction and a claim that His Word and His promises are true.

in fact, there is a verse in the psalms that says God's promises are right now standing in heaven, already realized.

to root this idea in me, i've recently been trying to shift my heart's definition of amen, hopefully opening up within myself a new and fuller perspective, a bigger trust.

I want my entire being to WHOLEHEARTEDLY believe in the truth of God's words, making me able to act on them in bold faith.

"the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie. though it tarry, wait for it, for it will surely come, it will not delay."

the time is coming.
the promises are true.
our God is trustworthy.

amen.
amen.
amen.

-----

habakkuk 2.

the gracious Father.

A mentor of mine once taught me that in Biblical times, if a family didn't want or felt they couldn't support a baby, there were designated fields where newborns could be left to die. It was an ancient form of abortion - after birth, the babies would be left lying under the sun until the heat of its rays did its brutal work.

Death by exposure.

I remembered this yesterday as I read the following passage in Ezekiel 16;

"On the day you were born, you were left lying, rejected, in the open field. When I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your own blood, I said to you: 'Live in spite of your blood.' I let you grow like the plants of the field; and you continued to grow up until you attained womanhood."

-----

God the Father rescued us.

He passed us by in the fields and in love decided to pick us up, take us out of the sun, and call us His own. He adopted us.

And now, instead of unwanted children, we are sons, daughters, and heirs of a King.

the appearance of the semblance of the Presence.

"Above the expanse over their heads was the semblance of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and on top, upon this semblance of a throne, there was the semblance of a human form. From what appeared as his loins up, I saw a gleam as of amber - what looked like fire encased in a frame; and from what appeared as his loins down, I saw what looked like fire. There was a radiance all about him. Like the appearance of the bow which shines in the clouds on a day of rain, such was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. That was the appearance of the semblance of the Presence of the Lord. When I beheld it, I flung myself down on my face. And I heard the voice of someone speaking..." -ezekiel 1.

-----

this portion of ezekiel's vision fascinates me.

look at the words he uses; sapphire, amber, fire, radiance.

these are powerful descriptors, conjuring up images of a form and a being that is beautiful and mighty beyond our understanding.

and this is merely a retelling of the appearance of the semblance of the Presence of the Lord. all that radiance and gleaming amber and framed fire is just a limited, far off, layered version of what God truly is. the reality of God is far too pure and holy for any man to look on in full.

the mere appearance of the semblance of the Presence of the Lord caused ezekiel, God's own prophet and priest, to fling himself down on his face in reverence and fear.

And this is the God who is mindful of us?

this is the God who chooses us?

this is the God who speaks (!) to us and calls us by name?

...

what grace. what heavy, heavy grace.

sabbath.

"Six days you shall gather it, and on the seventh day, the sabbath, there will be none then." -exodus 16:26.

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"The Sabbath - the word means "cessation time" - has not yet been enjoined in the Ten Commandments, but it is assumed by the story (with the Creation story behind it) to be part of the very structure of nature. Thus, the double portion of manna gathered on the sixth day is preserved through the seventh, and no manna is to be found on the seventh day." -commentary, robert alter.

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I have been reflecting upon this passage all week.

The idea that God did not merely command that we rest each week, but that he sewed the need for that rest into the very fabric of our natures, is fascinating to me.

This concept, if true, implies then that when we do not take time to cease from our constant movement to worship the Lord with stillness, we are not being our true selves.

That without rest, we are missing out on a key and central thread to the pattern of our souls.

Even God Himself, the Complete and fully Satisfied One, rested on the seventh day, so who are we to think that our small and vulnerable selves do not need to do the same?

God is a caretaker. He does not command in order to remind us of His power - He does so for our good.

Which means we can assume that this thing called the Sabbath, when obeyed and lived out in true worship before the Father, will usher into our hearts a fund of grace so vibrant and full as to be incomprehensible.

Be still.

Be quiet.

Cease.

And in this way, worship and bless and show trust for the One who made you.

The very words of God.

(Gamla Synagogue - Torah Closet. Israel, 2009).

-----

"The Lord your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and teachings. Carefully observe them with all your heart and all your soul." Deut. 26.

"How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" Psalm 119.

-----

In Biblical times, a Torah scroll was a rare and sacred thing, and one of great value. Generally priced at an extremely high cost, a normal Biblical city would have only one, and sometimes not even that.

There was great ceremony and joy associated with the scroll. At the beginning of the gathering, the keeper of the synagogue would remove the scroll from the Torah closet, open it, and slowly make his way around the people, holding it out for all those present to touch. Each person would place their fingers on the precious scroll, dancing before God and praising Him because His words were still there.

The very words of God, before them.

I got to mimic this ceremony and celebration while standing in the ruins of the ancient city of Gamla, in one of the oldest synagogues left in Israel. To dance with joy amongst other believers in celebration of the words of God was a beautiful and life-changing experience, and one that I will never forget.

This same attitude was true in other religions as well. I was told by one teacher that in Biblical times, people of the world would pay extravagant amounts of money, wait days and weeks and months outside of temples, and do just about anything possible in order to be given a word from the gods. They pursued with great fervor any guidance they could receive from the powers above.

They understood that a word from a god was a valuable and precious thing, and they would go to incredible lengths to receive one.

Even one.

one. little. word.

OUR GOD GAVE US AN ENTIRE BOOK.

A book FILLED with His blessed words.

His guidance.

His love.

His story.

His law.

His desires.

His will.

A whole book.

A Book that was carefully constructed, passed down, and preserved, for our benefit.

Do we read it?

Do we know it?

Do we seek it out morning, noon, and night, pouring over it like precious silver and gold?

We have it! His Words are STILL HERE.

Dance for joy.

His words.

The very Words of GOD.

רִחֵף : order out of chaos.

Five months ago I was sitting on this Costa Rican pier, talking to Jesus.

it was an absolutely beautiful day, but I had no peace. In fact, during the 6 weeks I spent in Costa Rica, most of my days were spent amidst an incredible amount of confusion, fear, and sadness. it was a very dark time, and I felt completely and utterly lost.

In the midst of my confusion, I wandered through Quepos and made my way to the pier, where I promptly sat down, fell apart, and cried out to God. from the deepest parts of me I cried out to Him, asking for help. I had no idea what kind of help I wanted or needed, but I knew I needed something. So there I sat, praying praying praying, Jesus, help me.

and after a very long wait, He gave me the most beautiful vision.

I looked up into the sky in the midst of my prayer, and I saw 3 huge birds flying over my head. One of them, directly overtop of me, was hovering – not moving through the sky, but floating motionless in one spot, using its powerful wings to keep itself directly overhead.

and my mind immediately returned to Israel. I had seen this image before. sitting on a tiny hill in the middle of a desert, overlooking an ancient Egyptian slave camp a mile from Egypt’s border, I had watched a bird hover just like that. It had turned itself in circles without moving from its perch in the sky, floating above our little wandering group as we sat below it, sweating from the heat of the desert.

and RVL’s words: “LOOK. that bird. that’s the kind of bird that the spirit of God is compared to when it hovers over the waters of the deep, creating the world. RICHEF. to hover.”

like the spirit of God.

hovering over the waters of darkness and nothingness, floating over the void.

bringing order out of all that messy chaos.

the spirit, hovering over the blackness, holding within itself a picture and a plan of something beautiful and purposeful and full of Godly design.

RICHEF. רִחֵף. to hover. a sign of God making something new.

and as my mind returned to the Costa Rican pier where I waited for God’s help, the tension in my spirit and my body BROKE, and I began to see my situation from the perspective of God.

my chaos.

my darkness.

my confusion.

all of me, a mess.

and absolutely no reason to fear.

because all of that disorder is just what God is known to work with.

He is the gracious creator God who hovers over our turmoil and out of it calls light. beauty. order. and love.

He takes all this nothing and forms it, speaks to it, molds it into something that is full of grace, inscribed and sealed with His Name.

He hovers. He creates. He call forth. He makes new.

Always.

we serve a God who takes pleasure in RENEWAL.

we serve a God of RICHEF.

let us always remember.

let us always persevere.

let us always hope.

amen.

consuming fire.

why are we, as followers of Jesus, so afraid of our emotions?

not our fluffy, surface emotions, but our deepest, blackest, most powerful emotions. emotions like

fury.

lust.

deep loneliness.

jealousy.

and despair.

the world seems to think that when we feel these kind of deep emotions, we are to restrain them, because a follower of Jesus should not battle with things like LUST, or LONELINESS, or DESPAIR.

but to shove something aside is let it continue to control you, and when we fear our emotions, that means they have a power in our lives that they shouldn't. until we take the lid off and allow our emotions to be dealt with honestly, they will continue to drain us of energy and confuse our perspectives from the dark and shadowy corners of our souls where they reside.

facing our emotions, when done with and in the presence of Jesus, does not push us away from the Father, but hurls us at Him with deepest force.

if we battle this lust, this loneliness, this doubt, at the feet of the Father - if we let Him be a part of the process and the conversation - then our wounds will be bound up, our healing will come, and our perspective will be true.

there is much to be learned from our most powerful emotions. we do not serve a God of light and fluffy characterisitics.

our God is a consuming fire.

He is zealous. He is jealous. He is passionate and powerful and true.

and when we feel these things in ourselves and let Him channel our emotions into things that are good and pure and holy, we will not only understand Him better, but we will be changed.

bring them - your pain, your loneliness, your desperation, your despair, your doubt, your fury -to the feet of the Father.

be honest before Him in prayer.

feel what you feel and let Him teach you.

He understands our struggles.

He is not afraid of our darkness.

His pure and fiery attributes are stronger than anything that we can throw at Him.

let Him refine you today.

do not hide from Him who you truly are.

be honest.

be true.

He will wrestle it with you.

He will bind it up.

He will make it into something good,

something new.

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"therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.” -hebrews 12, deuteronomy 4.

Abraham, a covenant, and Jesus.

In Genesis 15, God makes a covenant with Abraham.

In Biblical times, when a covenant was made between two parties, there was a formal way to go about establishing that covenant.

If it was a covenant between a greater and a lesser party, like Abraham and God, then the lesser party would kill a number of animals and cut them in half, letting the blood of the animals drain into a type of ditch, creating a blood path.

This blood path would then be walked through by both parties, signifying that the covenant being made was binding, and that the punishment for breaking it would be death.

Basically, as you walked through the blood you were saying, "If I don't hold up my part of the covenant, then my blood will run like the blood I walk through."

In Genesis 17, we see the terms of the covenant laid out by God. He says to Abraham: "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant with you and will greatly increase your numbers."

So, the terms of the covenant between Abraham and God are as such: God greatly increases Abraham's numbers and blesses him, if Abraham walks before God blamelessly.

...

Blamelessly.

The word means wholly, perfectly, and is often used in the Bible to signify a lamb without defect.

Basically, God is saying to Abraham: your part of the covenant is to be perfect.

So it comes as no surprise that after Abraham sets up the blood path, he "fell into a deep sleep, and a thick darkness came over him."

The phrase "thick darkness" in the original Hebrew means "dark terror."

Abraham was terrified to enter into this covenant with God.

Why?

Because Abraham knew.

Abraham knew that he could never walk perfectly before the LORD no matter how hard he tried, and therefore as soon as he walked through that blood path, he was destined for death.

He could never do it. For Abraham, this was an impossible covenant.

...

But then something interesting happens.

The Word says that after the sun had set, as Abraham was sleeping/fretting in terror, "a smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and passed before the pieces."

A smoking fire pot, with a blazing torch.

Smoke. and fire.

These are the two images God's uses to signify the manifestation of His presence in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Smoke and Fire, One, then two.

God walks through the blood path TWICE.

...

But why?

The answer to that question is nothing short of astounding.

God walked through the blood path twice,

because He too, knew.

God knew that Abraham and Abraham's descendants could never walk blamelessly before Him.
Never never ever.

God knew that if it was left up to us, the covenant would be broken, and we would fail.

God knew that if this thing was going to work,

if we were ever to be blameless and saved and blessed,

that someone far greater than us would be needed.

Yes. God knew.

God knew that He would have to do it for us.

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"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." -- romans.

"For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you by your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect." -- 1 peter.

"I have loved you with an everlasting love." -- God's promise to us, jeremiah.

Seek.

Indeed, I do not even judge myself. -- paul's letter to the corinthians.

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Often self-centeredness and pride are thought to be the same thing, but selfishness can take on many forms.

Self-pity, arrogance, self-judgement, despair, and fear are all forms of self-centeredness - each one averts our eyes from God and places our focus on our own self: my day, my abilities, my sins, my trials, my shortcomings, etc.

And being focused on ourselves, even with the desire of wanting to be better, only works to distract us from what matters - experiencing the presence of God.

Our purpose in life is to seek the face of God - and whether I'm praising myself or beating myself up for something, I lose sight of Him.

Luke writes; From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him.

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In the past few months God has been teaching me a lot about humility - that it isn't thinking lowly of myself, but that it's recognizing who I am before God. In fact, true humility is forgetting myself completely in His presence - letting all fall away but the reality of who He is.

My life should be the constant pursuit of seeking God's face in every situation.

In trials - we look for His teaching, His refinement.
In joys - we thank Him for His blessings.
In people - we look for the stamp of His image.
In creation - we look for His artistry.
In everyday simplicity - we look for His faithfulness, His work, His love.

All of this is for God, and He is in all things - the whole earth is full of His glory and created for His glory, even us.

So then:

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith,

And let us be encouraged, believing that God is not far from each one of us,

for in Him we live and move and have our being.

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God is near.

Seek.

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1 Chronicles 28. Hebrews 2. Acts 17. 1 Corinthians 4. Ephesians 1. Matthew 7. Isaiah 6.

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