In Some Measure...

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"O Majesty unspeakable, my soul desires to behold You. I cry to You from the dust.
Yet when I inquire after Your name it is secret. You are hidden in the light which no man can approach unto. What You are cannot be thought or uttered, for Your glory is ineffable.
Still, prophet and psalmist, apostle and saint have encouraged me to believe that I may in some measure know You. Therefore, I pray, whatever of Yourself You have been pleased to disclose, help me to search out as treasure more precious than rubies or the merchandise of fine gold: for with You shall I live when the stars of the twilight are no more and the heavens have vanished away and only You remain. Amen."

A prayer from A.W. Tozer.

A word from Oswald.

"You cannot truly intercede through prayer if you do not believe in the reality of redemption...True intercession involves bringing the person, or the circumstance that seems to be crashing in on you, before God, until you are changed by His attitude toward that person or circumstance...People describe intercession by saying, 'It is putting yourself in someone else's place.' That is not true! Intercession is putting yourself in God's place; it is having His mind and His perspective."

-Oswald Chambers

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Being a vessel or a tool for a person that God has put into our lives requires us to see them and their circumstances as God sees them.

To be useful to the Kingdom, we NEED to have the mind of Christ.

How else can we be certain that we are living out of truth?

To have the mind of Jesus means spending time getting to know Him. It means reading His word and getting to know His story. It means watching His life on earth and how he interacted with God, people, and situations.

And it requires a lot of listening. Jesus prayed often while on this earth, and we must do the same. God longs to speak to us and use us, just as he used Jesus, our Rabbi.

So let us say, "Here we are, send us."

Let us listen.

Let us intercede.

Let us see and do as our Rabbi does.

Let us carry on this mission.

Blessing Board.

When you live in a house with 7 people, there tends to be a lot going on at any given moment. So much so, that more often than not, it's hard to keep up with everyone throughout the week. There is always something new going on or happening.

To stay connected, our house makes a point to get together every Sunday night and talk about our weeks, what we're struggling with, what we're learning, and how God has blessed us.

After all that, we do something fun together.

A few Sundays ago, we started talking about all the things God has done for us since moving into this big house together, and we were surprised at how much we had already forgotten after only 4 months.

And believe me, there was a lot to forget.

God's blessing has been abundant here.

So, in order to make sure that God gets credit for all the good things He does each day, we decided to create a blessing board. In a way, this board is a house standing stone, our N.C. family's little something pointing to the sky, witnessing how big our God is, and how faithful.

And it has been an amazing addition to our house. Being able to read each new thing that God has done is not only a way to praise God, but also a way to celebrate as a body together the richness of God's grace all around us.

So many times throughout the Bible God calls us to remember.

To witness.

To praise.

To notice.

To celebrate.

And with this little blessing board, we try to center ourselves around Him, and bring glory to the One who never fails to bless and provide.

"The failure to bless God for benefit received from the world is to deny His goodness and His authority over all that He has created." - Brad Young

Desert

In Isreal we hiked through the desert a lot. Hours and days were spent experiencing the heat, the rocks, the sun. It takes incredible effort just to BE in the desert, so imagine hiking and climbing throughout it as well.

It was hard. Really hard.

Being one who walked those miles, I can say by personal experience that deserts, at least the ones that the Bible refers to, are powerful. They sap your strength. Deserts stretch and challenge and require all your energy. Deserts not only weaken the body, but also the mind.

And Deserts are long. They stretch for miles and miles without any sight of green. Deserts are vast.

I say this because one of the most powerful lessons I learned while in Israel was this: That God very purposely leads us into deserts, and that the deserts we face are some of the most important experiences of our faith. They hold incredible purpose.

And what is that purpose, you ask? To strengthen us. To push us. To prepare us. To make us weak in order to remember that God is strong. To remind us. To make us like our Rabbi.

And to teach us further, deeper, better, that God is the God who provides and loves and leads and meets us when we feel dry, used up, alone. When we feel as though we can't go on and the rocky path ahead seems too long, it's in those moments that God reveals Himself. It's in those moments when we gain the most understanding.

Understanding has to be earned. It has to be fought for. It has to require of us.

So God leads us into the desert.

Because He wants us to be strong. And more importantly, He wants us to know Him. He wants us to see what He's made of (and also to see what we're made of).

In the desert, God shows us not only who He is, and not only who we are, but who we CAN be.

Yes, the desert is strong. Yes the desert is important. Yes, the desert is good. But the desert is not where the story ends. As is always the case with God, the real story ends with love.

Powerful, life-giving love.

Because the biggest reason God leads us into the desert is so that we get to experience the depths of His incredible, healing love. Only when we have nothing left can we truly know the power and the glory and the intimacy of the love of God.

And so, in the midst of my own personal desert, God speaks these words into my heart:

"Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her." - Hosea 2:14

The desert is strong.

But His tender voice speaks within it.

Living Water

Thinking of my little brother David today, far away in Afghanistan. Sometimes I get so afraid for him, away from home and family and so near danger and things that threaten; spiritually, mentally, physically.
But today God reminded me that He is living water, that He is near David amidst the desert of this war, and that all is in His hands.

He holds the power to rescue, love, save, refresh, build up, protect.

And today, I know that He offers that to David in the way that he needs it, because God is who He says He is.

I rest in that.


"The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." - Isaiah 58:11

The Very Words of God.

"Jews read the Bible the way a person reads a love letter. When you read a love letter, you don't just read it for content. You try and squeeze every last little bit of meaning out of it, e.g., Why did he sign it 'Yours' instead of 'Love'?" - Harold Kushner

I am trying to memorize the book of John. The whole thing. I got the idea driving home from the airport, fresh off my trip from Israel, and in the begginning, the excitement from that place spurred me on...

those first few days.

It has now been 3 months since coming home, and I have learned 21 verses from chapter 1.

21 verses.

In 3 months.

Hmmmm.

In Israel, we learned that Jesus, being a Rabbi, would have had the entire Torah (Gen-Deut.) memorized, along with most of the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures. All of them...

So what's my problem?

My problem is that I do not eat, sleep, and breathe the Word of God like my Rabbi did. My problem is that I started memorizing, studying, caring, much later than I could have. My problem is T.V. and friends and Dr. Mario and really good books. My problem is long long runs and writing letters.

My problem is a lot of really good things working as distractions against the most important thing.

Because no matter what I do with my life, if it isn't rooted, established, and grounded on the Word of God, then something's wrong.

Then I'm not being like my Rabbi.

And I want to be like Him.

So today, AGAIN, I remind myself what the begginning, middle, and end of my days should look like:

"These commandments I give you are to be upon your hearts...Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." - Deut. 6.

I remind myself that this Book, these words, are not work, but love, and that the Rabbi I follow, the one I desire to be like in every way, loved it well and wholeheartedly.

And so, again, today, I try to do the same.

"Turn it (the Torah) over and over again, for one can find everything in it." Ethics of the Fathers 5:22.

all things.

"this is one of the goals of the Jewish way of living: to experience commonplace deeds as spiritual adventures, to feel hidden love and wisdom in all things."

- abraham joshua heschel