A Way Back

I am currently doing a Bible study of Ruth through the First 5 app. If you don't know what that is it is created by Proverbs 31 and they have many studies available. Of the studies that I've done I would say they are for anyone, not just women. They begin with a foundations week and then have lessons Mondays-Fridays and a weekend study. 

Well, I started this one late and missed the foundations week, but I can go back and do it anytime. I got something out of the daily teachings each day and even some things beyond the teachings. The weekend one for this past week was called 'The Way Back". The teaching was good but I was struck with a similarity. 

Jacob sent his sons to Egypt because there was a famine in the land, the Promised Land. If you know the story you know they found much more than food in Egypt. They found their brother, Joseph, that they sold into slavery and he was the reason their family was rescued from death. Pharaoh invited his father and extensive family to come to Egypt to live and offered them the best land (Genesis 45). That's a pretty good offer, but they were already living in the land promised to his grandfather, Abraham. Why should they leave that land, even for the best land of Egypt? Even in a famine?

Jacob, or Israel as he's called at this point, heads out to Egypt, but he had his doubts. He stops in Beersheba and offers sacrifices to God. God spoke to him and told him not to fear going to Egypt. He promised to make his family into a great nation while in Egypt (Genesis 46). Interestingly, it might have been the best land but it was separate from the Egyptians because they detested shepherds. Hmm, Jesus is the Great Shepherd. But that's a whole different discussion.

Eventually, over 400 years of living there, they went from honored guests to slaves. I wonder how many people over the years thought about God telling Jacob to not fear going there, even though it obviously didn't turn out well for them. They did indeed become a huge nation, but great? 

Jump ahead a ways and Moses is leading them out of Egypt and back to the Promise Land. Even though they were slaves, they left with gold and silver and clothes given to them by the Egyptians who begged them to leave. They left with increase.

Now back to Ruth. Naomi and her husband, Elimelek, and two sons are about to leave the Promise Land due, once again, to famine. They did not go to back to Egypt but went to the closer land of Moab. Moab was their enemy, but they went anyway. This time is different though. There is no mention of them making sacrifices and hearing from God to go. There is no invitation from the ruler of Moab. There is no mention of choice land or even what Elimelek would do when he got there.

Elimelek dies and his sons marry Moabite women and then after living in Moab for 10 years the sons die as well. Naomi hears that the famine is finally over and God has provided for His people, so she decides to go home. She leaves Moab with her daughter-in-laws and it seems nothing else. No one handed her gold or silver or even clothes as she left. All she had with her was these young women and one of them she convinces to go back home. She left with decrease.

Ruth, her daughter-in-law who does return with her, eventually becomes the grandmother of King David and the multiple times-great grandmother of Jesus. So Naomi didn't leave with nothing.

Famine drove both Jacob and his family out of the Promised Land and famine drove Naomi and her family out of the same land. God told Jacob to not fear going and that they would become a great nation. There is no evidence that Elimelek spoke to God about it at all. Jacob's family did grow into a great nation. Elimelek's family fell apart. The Israelites were given gifts to get out. Naomi was given nothing, but Ruth chose to go with her, and she turned out to be a life-saving gift. 

We all face our own versions of famine. If we talk to God and listen to Him, He will direct our steps. Even if He takes us into a place we never thought we'd go. Or we can take matters into our own hands and step out of His plan and will. But here's the thing. In both cases we can go back. We can end up right back in His promises. We may end up with treasures or we may end up back there with new people in our lives. We may go back with more or with less. But regardless He still has a plan. He still has a purpose. He still has a destiny for us. 

Sometimes I think that I have more power than I do, and that my mis-steps mean His will can't be accomplished. Here's the thing, He already knew I'd make the mis-steps and included them in the plan. And I'm definitely not powerful enough to thwart His plans. I just need to go back to Him. Because He still has a plan for me. He still has a purpose. He still has my destiny. 

In His Hands

Yesterday morning I was sitting at my vanity getting ready for work and listening to a group of women discussing trusting God on a YouTube video. Trusting God is not an easy one for me, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one who struggles with trusting Him. But as these women spoke one of them said something that struck me. I stopped putting on my makeup and prayed for someone in line with what she had said. I'd share what she said, but I honestly don't remember what it was. 

As I prayed I was given the most amazing visual by God. I saw this person in God's hands. As I continued to pray and talked with God about keeping this person even as the choices may or may not be for his good. I asked God to keep him even as he tried to do things his way. This is when the image of God's hands became truly amazing. I saw this person running towards the edge of God's hands and instead of falling off His hands grow. They didn't shift, like I would have expect them to, they actually grew. The person in His hands ran along the edge but the hands just got bigger and bigger. I realized that He was safe in God's hands.

I understood that God keeps us not by cupping us between His hands, like a caught creature in some small boy's hands. If that was how He held us we would panic and want out. We wouldn't see Him as Savior but rather Captor. And once He'd open them, just a little bit to peek at us, we would make a run for it. God doesn't hold us like that. His hands are cupped wide open like a bowl. He lets us ran around in the freedom of His hands. When we need cradling His hands shrink to hold us close. When we need the freedom to explore choices, maybe even bad ones, His hands grow large enough for us to explore but still be safe and secure. Being held in God's hands doesn't mean stifled and caught, it means freedom, love, security. It means knowing that even if I try to run away from God His hands are large enough to keep me safe from my own bad choices. 

I know I can't do what God showed me justice but I hope I helped you see His hands differently. 

Let Those Words Sink In

 "And all were astonished at the majesty of God. But while they were all marveling at everything He was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, 'Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.' But they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, so that they might not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask Him about this saying." Luke 9:43-45 ESV

What struck me while reading these three verses was, "how often does God speak to me, but I don't understand it? How often do I not understand because of the limits of my human brain and how often is it because I'm not spiritually ready to perceive it yet?"

I love that Jesus told them to let the words sink in. Have you ever been asked or asked someone else "did it finally sink in?" when there's a lightbulb moment? All the gears are turning and the pieces are fitting in and you just get it. Sometimes it's a quick figuring-it-out and sometimes it takes years before you see everything for what it actually means. But His saying to them to let it sink in gives me hope that His words will sink in for me too. 

I've heard so many messages preached about how slow the disciples were or dumb the Israelites were, but how am I an quicker, any brighter? Really, I'm not. God still speaks. He speaks through His Word. He speaks through His creation, whether that be man, beast, seasons, sunshine, whatever. He's revealed to me personally about my own stubborn nature through my cats and dogs. Nothing like thinking your smarter than an animal until you realize your own foolish actions while watching theirs. Humbling, if you let it be. 

Often He tells me things but I don't get. I beat myself up for it.  And just like the disciples, I'm too afraid to ask. But who am I to think that somehow I would get what God is trying to say any better or more quickly than the 12 men who spend almost every moment over 3 years with Jesus? They were as close as brothers and yet there were plenty of times that they didn't understand. God opened the eyes and ears of them at the right time. 

I recently had a text conversation with a fellow teacher in which the other person wrote, "...you would think after all these years following Jesus I would learn...". My reply was meant to be funny but afterwards I really thought about how true it is. "....we are hard headed sometimes and need remediation". As a teacher, I can't just teach it again the exact same way or I'll end up with the exact same puzzled faces looking at me. And there are times when I have to realize it doesn't matter how many different ways I teach it if the child or children aren't at a developmental level yet to perceive it. 

How often does God need to adjust the lesson in order to try to help me figure it out? How often does He word it differently? But how often does He not say it again because even though I've heard it I'm not at a spiritual developmental level to understand it yet? 

We try to make it sound like it's easy by saying things like "He speaks and all I have to listen." Yes, but sometimes He speaks and even though I've listened I'm not going to get it...yet. As someone who beats myself up for not getting it, for not understanding, for needing some remediation, it's nice to know sometimes it's not a matter of not hearing God, but rather not being ready to understand the true meaning or impact of His words yet. He still speaks. He also still prepares us to perceive what He previously said.

So keep listening, because He's still talking. And keep asking for spiritual maturity to understand. But fair warning spiritual maturity only comes from emotional, physical, and/or spiritual growing pains. But when we can perceive what he's saying all those growing pains become worth it.

Amazing Dream

Today my Facebook memory popped up with this incredible dream that I had a year ago. I can't believe I forgot that I even had this dream. See I dream a lot. A lot! But many are just bizarre and forget them pretty quickly, but the ones like this one, I usually remember. I'm so glad that I typed this dream up so that it could be a memory for me to see today. I will look forward to this memory popping up on my Facebook each year. 

Here's the post about the dream.

"Last night I had a dream and in it there was a place that I really wanted to be. An authority type explained why I couldn't go there. It wasn't said meanly or anything. It wasn't loud or threatening. It was stated factually. However, fear kicked in and those words that play a loop in my mind started in. Flight was my answer. But when I turned around to flea, I was face to face with myself and before I could react, other me threw arms around me. Other me got right in my ear and whisper, "stop, turn around, stand. This isn't going to turn out as he said." Other me turned me around, gave my shoulders a reassuring squeeze...and then I woke up. 

I know that other me was God's Truth speaking into that place of longing and to that place that lets fear win. I got up and went for my walk and listen to a podcast that "just so happened" to be about listening to the right Voice and used the David and Goliath encounter to make the point. 

I love how God does that! Can't say I'm looking forward to facing this particular giant but I am looking forward to seeing it fall!

Lord, help me stop, turn around, and stand in the face of fear because You are with me."

I know! Such a powerful dream! 

Putting My Feet In

"So when the people set out from their tents to pass over the Jordan with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people, and as soon as those bearing the ark had come as far as the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the brink of the water (now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest), the eaters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap very far away, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, and those flowing toward the Sea of Arabah, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. And the people passed over opposite Jericho. Now the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firmly on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, and all Israel was passing over on dry ground until all the nation finished passing over the Jordan."

Joshua 3:14-17

I love reading familiar Scripture and seeing something for the first time, or more accurately gaining greater insight from God. I love the book of Joshua. I read it many, many times. As a history lover this book fits that desire to know what happen, but I also love it because it reveals so much about entering in to what God has for a personal Promised Land. 

Joshua 3:14-17 is the end of the chapter in which the Israelites are about to take their first, collective steps into the land promised to their father and mothers. A land promised to their forefather Abraham. The people gather up all they had, which couldn't have been too much since they needed to be able to pack it up and carry it with them as they wondered in the Wilderness. Side note - they couldn't bring in too much baggage. That just struck me. They were to follow the priests into the Jordan River and make their way across. 

The priests were to enter the river, carrying the Ark of the Covenant, and as their feet dipped in the brink of the water the water coming toward them stopped. Not near them, but far away. I wonder if it was too far for them to see the wall of water. Reason would tell me that it would have dried up for a ways downstream considering nothing was flowing into it. I guess that would make it possible for such a large group of people to pass through. 

I wonder this because it is one of the differences I notice about the Israelites' parents and grandparents in their crossing of the Red Sea. In Exodus 14 it states that the water was divided and that there was a wall of water on both the right and the left. Is it because seas and rivers differ in the way they flow? Rivers flow one way, but seas have tides that move in and out. Could that be why the Red Sea has walls on either side, and presumably within sight of the Israelites, and the Jordan is risen up in one very high heap far away? 

Another difference is Moses held a staff over the waters of the Red Sea and God divided the waters. In Joshua, we find that the priests have to entered the water before God divided it. There had to be at least four priests carrying the ark, one for each corner. However, it may have been too heavy for just four men, so maybe there were six or even more.  Why even wonder about how many priests there were? Well, it doesn't say when the first priest dipped in it says when the priests dipped in the brink the waters stopped. So did they all have to be in before it dried up? Or was it just as the first two entered that it dried up? 

The crossing of the two bodies of water have a lot of similarities but when looked at closely, I notice many differences. In one they were being pursued. In another they are entering in as the conquers. In one God shows them right before their eyes the walls of water and in the other, presumably, they don't see the heap of water at all. In both the land is dry. But did one take more faith than the other?

Back to those priests and their feet. They had to entered into the water of a overflowing river. God didn't divide it ahead of time. They had to step in. If it was all the priests who had to enter, imagine the faith the ones farthest in had to have to believe that once the last were in it would stop flowing. Or if it was just the first two, were the first two chosen because they exercised the most faith beforehand and that is why they were first? Either way these men had to be scared to enter an overflowing, probably fast moving, river and have a least mustard seed size faith that God would dry it up for them. The Israelites crossing the Red Sea were gripped by fear of the enemy behind them and no one had to touch water for their rescue to take place. This Joshua group of Israelites had an enemy waiting for them, and in order to press into the promise they had to get their feet wet, at least a handful of them did. 

In my own life, I look to God to provide Red Sea types of crossings. I want to stand there, maybe reach an arm out, and watch the walls of the sea in my life on either side as I move through the way He has created. But that miracle way was for when being pursued. If I want to enter into the promises of God I can't just stand there. I have to take my little mustard seed size faith and step into the waters. The end result is still the same. God still dries up the impossible way so that I can get across.  Next comes either the hurried steps of one being pursued or the hesitant steps of being hopeful as entering into a promise but also knowing there is an enemy and battles to fight up ahead. 

As scary as both are, once across the Red Sea the enemy was destroyed as the walls caved in and water flooded over them. They experienced immediate relief (not that the rest of their journey was easy because we know it wasn't.) Once across the Jordan River the waters start to flow and you have only a few choices: let fear drive you to re-enter the flooding waters and drown; let fear keep you stuck in that spot; or although afraid take the next step into the promise, and the next step, and the next, and the next. You get the point. 

I want to be like the priests who stepped in the raging water, came out on dry land with dry feet, and kept moving forward into the promise and a deeper relationship with God. 

Grieving Again, and Again

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:" Ecclesiastes 3:1

Last night, I cried myself to sleep. I cried because I was grieving something, something deeply personal. This post isn't about what I grieve, but about how important it is to grieve. 

All of us will experience times in our lives when we will grieve, but much of our grieving we do in private and more often than not for private reasons. People expect you to grieve the loss of a loved one. It's "acceptable". Like your grief is looking for acceptance! I've heard, and I'm sure you have too, people say things like, "why are they crying over it still?" or "what is the big deal anyway" or "that was a long time ago, they should be over it by now" or "it's not like she was pregnant enough to get attached". Yeah, I've heard one, actual all of  them and much more. People put conditions on other people's grief, which is why so much of it is done in private. 

Verse 4 of Ecclesiastes 3 says "a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn; and a time to dance;" God knows that we will have times in our lives when we cry ourselves to sleep. Times when the sadness of loss, in whatever form, will overwhelm us. Solomon, the wisest person ever, wept too. He did, even though it's never mentioned (or at least not that I can think of right now). I know he did, because he was human, and we all experience times of grief. Jesus did. He wept. John 11:35

The fresher the moment the deeper we tend to grieve. Our day feels bookended by our grief and more than likely filled with it too. We move through our grief and find moments of sunshine and laughter in our day. Our tears at night may still be there, but we realize the grieving isn't a constant anymore. We get to a point where the grieving only comes on us when a reminder presents itself. The grief is still there, but the level of intensity is different. 

Once again, that kind of grief is experienced, at some point in life, by all of us. We all have lost and will lose people in our lives that bring these times of grief. But we also have the less acceptable times when we grieve. The times that others actually judge our grief, judge us. 

Hannah cried silently to the Lord and Eli misunderstood and thought she was drunk. He didn't understand that what he witnessed was grieving. Others misunderstand, judge, or even ridicule so much of what we grieve because they don't understand. I don't understand everyone's private area of grief. I don't know all the hurt or sadness that brings the tears. I don't know the desire left unfulfilled that causes their mourning. I don't know their loss of what was or what can never be. I've not experienced what they have, so I can't comprehend the level of grieving it brings. Just because I don't understand theirs doesn't mean I don't understand their need to process through the grief and reprocess that grief when it comes along again, because it always does. That is having empathy. (I'm not going to go into it but personal pet peeve is when people say we need to learn empathy. Empathy isn't born from learning about a person's problems. Empathy comes from personal experience and understanding that others suffer too. It's born from loving people regardless of their problems because I know the hurt I feel for mine is similar to the hurt they feel for theirs. We can learn to sympathize but to empathize, we must experience. Okay, that was a long "not going to go into it".)

What you grieve, literally anything that you grieve, needs time to process through. You need the time. You need the Lord, to heal the deep hurt that caused the grief. Regardless of what anyone else thinks, or whether there is a support group for what causes your grief or not, you need your times to weep, your times to mourn. Don't let your own timetable or anyone else's stop you from grieving. Grieving cut short will only lead to bitterness and anger and despair. Grieve. And understand others' need to grieve, even when you don't understand why they grieve. 

Last night was not the last time I will grieve over my pain. I have experienced this grief for years and know that it may never leave me. But I give myself permission to grieve it every time it needs me to.  

Wake Up Sleeper, Open Your Eyes

I've been pretty quiet for the last year to year and a half. I haven't thought much about blogging during this time, but yesterday I thought about how long it's been since I've consistently posted. I'm not sure if 2021 holds more posts for me or not but I thought January 1st is a good day to write one. 

I'm one of those rare people who dream in non-REM sleep. Yes, we exist. You can google it. I dream in both REM and non-REM states. Dreaming in non-REM feels almost like being awake and those dreams, or at least details from them, tend to stay with me once I wake up. Sometimes the dreams are more verbal than visual. This morning my dream included the words "Wake up sleeper. Open your eyes." playing over and over again, and me, even asleep, feeling like God was speaking to me. When I did wake up the dream stayed and I began to ponder. 

You see each year I ask God for a word or phrase for the year. I did this before the whole One Word thing even started. Now I'm wondering if this is the phrase for 2021? I like it if it is. It won't be easy though, because it's an action phrase. Now that I think about it most of the words or phrases He's given me are. But waking up is something I'd rather not do. See I love to sleep! I love to pull the covers close and snuggle in and dream away. Waking up spiritually can be hard too, because, well it means I have to stop dreaming my way. I need to open my spiritual eyes and see what He wants me to see, to dream, to work towards. Waking up means putting aside a sweet dream and living. Getting out of bed and getting started. It means responsibilities and work. It's no longer focused on the dreams I may have for how my life should go but actually doing the work necessary to live the life He has for me. Which sometimes, thankfully, match up with what I dream. (I feel like I'm trying to talk myself out of thinking about this being my phrase for 2021.)

Yesterday I heard a song for the very first time "Spirit Lead Me" song by Michael Ketterer. (It's not brand new, I've just never heard it.) The words line up with everything I've been experiencing lately. When I heard it, I thought for sure that would be my phrase for the year. Now, I need to get quiet and listen to see which of the two, or something completely different, is the word or phrase for 2021. 

Because it's quite possible that it was simply a dream and my cat, Chester, was sending me wake up messages so I would feed him. 😂