From the Smallest of Seeds

 

Retirement is a remarkable adventure. As a former counselor/therapist I met several men in their mid-60s who presented with significant depression. Often, when I'd ask how long the client had been depressed, he would usually respond with, "About six months or so."

"Well," asking the next obvious question, "what happened six months ago?"

"I don't know," he'd say..."well, I did retire from my job of 40 years."

Those of us who find our worth in what we do, usually struggle when we stop doing that which defined us. The social response to self-definition is usually met with a job title..."Oh I'm a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker." A less defining response later becomes, "I'm retired," and the respondent no longer quite knows just what she/he is. Hence, depression leaps upon the retiree and forces a reexamination of the self at a time usually reserved for winding down. And while we all must answer the "who am I" question, those who find themselves known by their work/works are faced with a dilemma...either redefine the self or unretire.

I found the transition delightful, being one who loves Yeshua and seeks to walk with Him, know Him, and be known by Him. None-the-less, there can be gaps with one whose time is no longer occupied with the daily grind. Personally, there are several things that are meaningful and growth-enhancing in my retirement repertoire, however, I never would have predicted an attempt at the proverbial retiree activity...gardening. Gardening has been as difficult for me as my feeble attempts to learn Hebrew during the last few years and yet...it has also been just as meaningful.

Now, as all you green-thumbers can attest, gardening is fertile ground in which our God teaches us many things.

In my first attempt last year, I thought I could learn gardening in the same way I learned piano...through YouTube. But as all you old-hands/thumbs well know...you learn gardening through failure. Last year, in a modest 10' x 12' patch, I only harvested from three of the 12 vegetables I sowed. In between planting and harvesting, my poor underlings were subject to mildew, cut worms, cabbage caterpillars, underwatering, overwatering, lousy soil and an ole fella who learned much as he ate YouTube crow.

But in retrospect, that first year must have been orchestrated by Adonai. In everything we do, there is opportunity to learn of His character and trust in His providence. This year, of the 15 seed types/plants I sowed, 15 are thriving, many already bearing fruit. This is also Adonai's doing. Of course, the temptation to brag about what is happening in the garden this year is akin to the scene in the old Tom Hanks movie Castaway, as he marvels at his first fire which he produces from rubbing sticks together..."Look at what I have created!" he screams with passion to no one.

Atop this blog post is a picture of a tomato seed, followed by the tomato plants that have miraculously appeared in this year's same 10'x12' plot. To pretend that the furiously on-coming produce is of my doing is to miss the beauty of The Creator's Hand. First, Abba demonstrates His authorship of creation. I look at that tiny seed and am dumbfounded! How are these plants and fruit possible? How could I possibly ignore the unseen hand that causes all things to come forth at His word? Really? From that tiny seed?

Next, HaShem teaches me that He can produce much from little and here in this patch is demonstrable evidence of that truth, ala, the muster seed illustration. There is an act of faith in putting a seed in the ground. The gardener prepares the ground with that which has been discarded as useless (mulch, manure). She/he then nurtures the seed with the life-giving and sustaining substance...water. The Lord causes the sun to evoke growth and call forth that which is hidden within the seed. The gardener fertilizes, weeds, and keeps away that which would consume each plant before fruit is borne. The lesson is clear..."work with Me and what I have provided to produce a crop...a venture we can share together."

And still, with all these steps in this joint effort, I have no true concept of the miracle that takes place...how something dead becomes alive and then produces fruit. There are many parallels between the plant and our life in Messiah. For instance, the world wants to disable our growth in Messiah...our growth in producing fruit. Just like the mildew, the cutworm, the starvation of the seed, and yes, the evil cabbage caterpillar (lol), the world and the adversary want to steal what has been sown. And, if I allow the seed to be planted and then ignore what He has planted, failing to cultivate that which has been entrusted, I can expect the results similar to what my garden looked like last year. Crippled, diseased, eaten away, with sporadic fruit that would not have otherwise produced lest the grace of God.

Haverim, as in our gardens, let us not let anything fall to the ground. I no longer want to allow myself to entertain diseased worldly offerings or starve that which has been planted by the Holy One...or forget the potential fruit-bearing gifts lying dormant, lest they rot away due to neglectful cultivation. Rather, as I am learning this year from our God, let us nurture, be vigilant and pay attention to the way He would choose to produce fruit in our lives...but all the while trusting Him implicitly in that fruit's outcome.

What has Adonai taught you as a gardener?

 But Do You Like Me?

Many of us are YouTube perusers, often to the detriment of “what we ought to be doing…” If you imbibe that medium, your feed quickly indicates your interests: gardening, Messianic music, running and health, Monty Python sketches…oh wait, that’s my YouTube feed! 

Recently, I’ve been watching NDE videos (near death experiences), accounts of people who died and were then resuscitated. While there’s no shortage of viewpoints regarding those experiences, they are fascinating accounts of people encountering the afterlife. One I watched today recounted the well-know story of Howard Storm, an avowed atheist who died and found himself in hell. In the midst of the horrors he suffered, Storm quickly abandoned his arrogance and denial of HaShem, crying out, “Jesus please save me!” (Keep in mind that Storm is still alive, so this should not be considered a second chance after death.)

And then, Jesus did…

Storm describes how Yeshua was holding him, tightly, comforting him, and his first realization was that Yeshua liked him…a lot! In the clip, he choked up as he said, “Matter of fact, I’m His favorite person in the whole universe! I have to add,” he then says chuckling, “you are too!”

While I am very suspicious of NDE accounts, it got me to thinking…does our Creator like us?

There is a kind of perfunctory love of which we are all familiar. Our parents might remind us, for instance, that they loved us during our adolescence and then quickly add, “But I can’t say that I liked you much!”

We can fall into the trap of making that distinction when assuming how God loves/likes us. Recently, the author of the book “Gentile and Lowly,” Dane Ortlund, put it this way…”I think our tendency is to construct a view of God that unwittingly is an earth-to-heaven view rather than a heaven-to-earth view.”

In other words, we project our experience of love onto God, with a less than perfect understanding of His commitment to us as individuals.

We are hardwired to think of ourselves according to the law still…stuck in the “how am I doing Lord” mentality, believing that He evaluates us according to our performance.

Does HaShem merely tolerate us, or is He truly glad to be with us? I suspect most all of us can cognitively acknowledge the latter, all            the while treating His presence as if He is the parent of our adolescent selves. It is understandable after all, to see our heavenly Abba leading with the “disappointment card.”

“Why can’t you be more like your brother!” might be an echo from our youth.

What does it mean to be liked? There have been occasions when my wife will list the ways she likes me, which frankly, carries greater meaning than “I love you.” There’s no guessing about it, her comments are specific. She likes me!

God’s love can become so diminished when we water it down with our concept of parental love, or even “well, He loves everybody.” But His love is so far beyond our imaginings that it’s difficult with the filters we see through, to accept the fact, the truth, that He even likes us!

Those who rehearse this truth are more likely to relate to Yeshua beyond a performance-based, relationally conditional assumption.

I love this Ortlund quote during a recent interview: “Jesus is the single most accessible and approachable person in the universe. You don't have to go through security to get to him. You don't have to work your way up into a hearing before him. He is gentle and lowly in heart, which really is a fulfillment of what the Old Testament says about God himself. In places like Isaiah 57:15 God will say, “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly.” So already we have these glorious hints and teachings in the Old Testament about God being accessible while holy, which Jesus is the tangible incarnation and concrete reality of.”

Today, as you tend your garden, or go for a walk, or read the word…consider the truth of God’s “like” for you. Tis a necessary ingredient for accepting His friendship. Shalom, haverim!

Vapor Life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a-1q00Mf6Q        "Sunny Side of the Street"

In Cincinnati from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, there was no band more renowned than the Jimmy James Orchestra. If you clicked on the link above, you’re listening to a popular recording of the day by that band called Sunny Side of the Street. Jimmy James and his orchestra hosted thousands of followers each week at various locations in and around Cincinnati…he and his band performed throughout the United States; he had his own radio show on WLW radio in Cincinnati and Jimmy and his swing band was recognized as the best band in the region by the national broadcasting company, NBC.

Self-taught on the clarinet and saxophone, at age 15 he quit school to travel nationally and abroad with the Hal Kemp Orchestra. And in World War II, his job in the Army in Europe was to entertain the troops with his big band swing style. If you’re listening, that’s him playing clarinet…oh, he was gifted… Jimmy James. I know a lot about him. Jimmy James is my grandfather.

And now…a man who was a household name in greater Cincinnati is almost completely forgotten. He died in 1972 at age 64. His grave is unvisited…his name has vanished into obscurity. My Pawpaw was greatly gifted in his craft and made the most of it in this world. But as far as I know, all of his investments were in this life, all of his energy, all of his hope, all of his passion, was in his music.

Like so many people in this world, their investment is in this temporal life…everything they do is only focused on this world. When Pawpaw died, his marriage was horribly embittered, he was severely alcoholic, and his fame had eroded…only 64. There was zero evidence that he ever considered the lordship of our Messiah Yeshua…so all of his investment was spent by the time he died. Now he is in eternity, perhaps in She’ol, awaiting the great white throne judgement… I’ve stood on Pawpaw’s grave and pleaded with Adonai to have mercy on him…but my grandfather spent all his earthly investment here, with probably no eternal investment whatsoever.

Listen to this emphasis throughout Scripture about the extent of our earthly lives:

“Now listen, you who say, ‘today or tomorrow we will go to such-and-such a city, stay there a year trading and make a profit!’ You don’t even know if you will be alive tomorrow! For all you are is a mist that appears for a little while and then disappears.” (James 4:13-14)

“There was a man whose land was very productive. He debated with himself, ‘what should I do? I haven’t enough room for all my crops.’ Then he said, ‘this is what i will do: I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and I’ll store all my wheat and other goods there. Then I’ll say to myself, “you’re a lucky man! You have a big supply of goods laid up that will last many years. Start taking it easy! Eat! Drink! Enjoy yourself!”’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night you will die! And the things you prepared — whose will they be?’” (Luke 12:17-20)

“Adonai, what are mere mortals, that you notice them at all; humans, that you think about them? Man is like a puff of wind, his days like a fleeting shadow. (Ps 144:3-4)

“Make me grasp, Adonai, what my end must be, what it means that my days are numbered; let me know what a transient creature I am. You have made my days like handbreadths; for You, the length of my life is like nothing…yes, everyone is merely a puff of wind.” (Ps 39:5-6)

We who are in Yeshua have the freedom to rest in Him. We look toward the hope of our future with Him. This article is not about telling you to get busy. Neither is it about evangelism. Rather, let us all be mindful of how transitory this vapor life is. Holy Spirit, give us all a mind to think of You constantly and include You in all we do. Thank You that we have made our investment in You, the author of our lives and perfecter of our faith.

I often think about God's offer to Shlomo (Solomon)...to ask for his heart's desire. We know how wonderful his response was in that instance. But I also wonder what we would ask at this time in our lives, should Adonai offer it as He did Shlomo. I would ask for a constant awareness of His presence. The Lord has given us so much to enjoy and we are a grateful people. However, in my partaking of what He's given, I would like to think of Him and enjoy Him in the process much more than I do now. This is a great trap of the world...to fix our eyes inwardly or anyplace other than the Father.

So, I'd like to ask you in this moment now, to consider what one thing you would ask of the Father in the remaining 'mist' of our lives. Perhaps you'll have a discussion with Him about it. Perhaps you'll share it with the group in the comments below. 😊 We have the encouragement in Scripture to ask for our heart's desire. We are encouraged to ask and keep asking. So...ask!

Shalom, haverim!

 

Cold Love

 

     “Only ten percent of you sitting here will still be walking with Jesus, 10 years from now.”

     As a believer of only four months, this statement from the speaker rattled me. Internally, I confidently reassured myself that I would be in that small percentage and no doubt, every other person there was thinking the same thing… ”not me Lord, I will never forsake You!” I imagine too, that each person took a quick internal inventory of their commitment to Messiah. And while I have no way of knowing who in that room continued with our Lord, I do know this much…the person sitting next to me strongly renounced Jesus just two years later.    

     Recalling this event in my early Christian life (1982) led me to a bit of researching. In it, I was able to corroborate the claims of that speaker so long ago. In the book Faith for Exiles, authors Kinnaman and Matlock described those faithful ten percenters as “resilient disciples,” or rather, those who continue their commitment to Jesus ten years after their initial conversion. “From a numbers point of view,” Kinnaman says, “10 percent of young Christians amounts to just under four million 18–29-year-olds in the U.S. who follow Jesus and are resiliently faithful.”

     The writers define a resilient disciple as “those who have made a commitment to Jesus, who they believe was crucified and raised to conquer sin and death; are involved in a faith community beyond attendance at worship services; and strongly affirm that the Bible is inspired by God and contains truth about the world. Resilient disciples highly prioritize their life of faith inside and outside their place of worship.” (The research was conducted by Barna, a private, non-partisan group devoted to analyzing research that examines cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors.)

     I’ve found some solace in identifying myself as a ten-percenter (or resilient disciple) and yet, I take very seriously the words of Yeshua in Matthew 24 as He describes the signs of His return: “⁹Then they will hand you over to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. ¹⁰ And at that time many will fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one another. ¹¹ And many false prophets will rise up and mislead many people. ¹² And because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will become cold.” (NASB)

     Several translations in verse 12 use the word “many” rather than “most.” Either way, the thought is sobering, in much the same way I was shaken by that teaching in 1982. Adonai also attributes this “cold love” to be a result of lawlessness and it’s increase. In a practical sense, we certainly can acknowledge the ambush of Christians in the media, the increasing numbers of Americans who identify as “none” when asked to describe their faith affiliation, and the frequent vilifying of believers by the general public (due largely to people groups identifying as God’s spokespeople who are really “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”)

    My view on “lawlessness” is this…lawlessness is a reference to the denial of Yeshua as God Messiah rather than the “fruit” of that lawlessness. Recall that when Yeshua asked who His disciples thought He was, Kefa (Peter) responded, “Attah Mashiach El,” which means, “You are God Messiah.” In short, those relying on the mercy of God through Yeshua are not lawless; those denying that mercy through Yeshua are lawless, regardless of their fruits. (I recognize that is not the view of all!)

     In light of Yeshua’s proclamation that lawlessness will lead to many or most growing cold toward Him, we must recognize how appealing and drawing are the promises of the world, as well as the fact that we “resilient disciples” are not only a minority, but increasingly so! As our numbers dwindle (in the same way that many fell away from following Messiah when they realized He was there as the Suffering Servant rather than The Conquering King), we do not rely on the world’s offerings, any more than we rely on the strength of our numbers or the vitality of “our church.” In relying SOLELY on the mercy of Hashem, we are automatically relying on His impassioned love and care for us and are not given over to the lies that assume His disinterest or displeasure in us individually. Those ideas are gateways to falling away/growing cold!

     We must sharpen our senses and awareness of the devices designed to woo us away, all the while learning to cultivate our relationship with Abba. I agree with writer John Parsons on his website, Hebrew for Christians, when he says, “God redeemed you so you could know and love Him.” He goes on to say that it can become easy to “forget” how much we mean to Him as individuals, leading then to a distorted view of God and ourselves as His kids.

     This week’s “Torah Portion” in the Jewish world is Parashah Shelech-Lekha, found in Numbers 13-15. This section of scripture is a recounting of the “Sin of the Spies.” When we forget how important and precious we are as individuals to our Abba, we can unwittingly repeat the sin of the spies who reported that, “we were in our eyes like grasshoppers.” As Parsons eloquently puts it, “Their view of themselves was more real than God’s view of them.”

     Said another way, we can fool ourselves into thinking that our belittling self-talk is evidence of humility and holiness, when in fact it is evidence of pride and self-reliance. Let us not forget our calling as image-bearers of Hashem, those of whom He dotes on and delights in. Isn’t it ironic that many of us are still afraid to be seen by Him, even though He knows us definitively more than we ever could!

     An earmark of being a resilient disciple is seeing ourselves worthy of the inheritance Yeshua procured. Being poor in spirit is not self-deprecation, but rather the joyful understanding that the mercy of God through Yeshua is our ONLY hope and that striving to please Him is folly. On the other hand, we can either cultivate knowing and relating to Him or cultivate the same with distractions of the world. In my still immature state of being, I confess that it is easier for me to dine on the world’s junk food than rest in Yeshua and enjoy the inheritance He’s given.

     When I choose the latter, however, I find courage rather than cowardice. I become Caleb rather than a “grasshopper spy.” My love is activated from cold, or worse, lukewarm, to finding complete comfort in His love. And in those moments I am filled with the relief that “doing for Him” in order to find His acceptance is worthless and unnecessary.

     Charles Spurgeon once said, “Has there not been, sometimes, this temptation to do a great deal for Christ, but not to live a great deal with Christ?”

     You are a resilient disciple. Your love will never grow cold, since it is Messiah’s love that brings you to love Him. Peace and joy, however, can be cultivated by our rest in Him. Increasing knowledge of Him comes with that rest, further enhancing our desire to be with Him. May the God of our inheritance convince us of His unchanging and unconditional care and knowledge, and thereby dispel the claims of the world on us. Find joy friends in being a ten-percenter!

 

How Small is Our World; How Big is Our God

  

I travelled to the East Coast last week to visit family and had a layover in the Newark/New York airport. As a result of my 20 years in the Air Force, I am no stranger to various cultures and large concentrations of people, and yet there is still a kind of culture shock for a fella that lives in a small rural Ohio community reexperiencing life in the big city. Mingling with throngs of people of different languages and ethnicities can bring a sense of smallness, or at least reawaken one’s perspective.

   In our individual experiences, we can lose sight of the vastness, as well as the intricacies of our Creator. So just when I was feeling that ‘smallness’ in that airport, the Lord of the Universe orchestrated a personal touch for me, and I was soon engaging in a ‘God appointment!’

   Sitting at a counter waiting for my flight, a man sat down beside me and began speaking Hebrew on his phone! (I’ve been learning Hebrew for the last two years through an online program.) When he ended the call I inquired, “Attah medaber Evrit? (Do you speak Hebrew?) He responded with “Ken” (Yes) and I immediately panicked and forgot everything else I had learned from the previous two years! I’d never spoken the language with a native speaker…however, his ‘Angleet’ (English) was excellent, and we had a wonderful conversation. He asked me what my motivation was for learning Hebrew, and I was able to share with him my love for Israel because of my love for Yeshua. Being a Reformed Jew, he was not offended by my Messianic Gentile status. The point of this of course, is that God remembered me as I was feeling invisible.

     How small is our world, how big is our God? On one hand, Adonai’s vastness is such…He is:

• supreme over all creation…
• all has been created through Him and for Him…
• He existed before all things…
• He holds everything together…
• He holds first place in everything…
• by His word He made the heavens…

• He commanded, and there it stood…
• He watches everyone on earth…
• He understands the hearts of all…
• the universe was birthed through His Word…
• He stretched out the earth…
• He gives breath and spirit to all people…

   By His breath He made the whole host of heaven…

   Let’s take some perspective, beginning with the vastness of His creation? For instance, the sun is 93 million miles away from earth and is so large that 960,000 earths could fit inside it. And that’s just one star in the galaxy that Creator God made for us!

   How about Betelgeuse? No, not the movie. It’s a star. It’s 427 light years away, about 5.88 trillion miles.  Well, you could fit 262 trillion earths inside Betelgeuse!

   But that’s not even the biggest star.  The largest known star is Canis Majoris. It’s so big that you could fit seven quadrillion earths in it! Do you know what a quadrillion is? Think of it this way:  

1 million seconds ago – 11.5 days ago
1 billion seconds ago – 32 years ago
1 trillion seconds ago – 31,688 years ago
1 quadrillion seconds ago –31,709,792 years ago

Yeah, seven of that number. And these are just the stars that our beautiful God has created… immersed in one galaxy…of an estimated one trillion galaxies in the known universe!

   Here’s how big our God is.  A light year is travelling at the speed of light…186,000 miles a second. If you travel at the speed of 186,000 miles, not per hour, but per second, you are travelling at the speed of light.  But if you travel at that speed for an entire year, you have traveled one light year.  Do you know how far you would have to travel to go from one edge of our galaxy to the other? You would have to travel 186,000 miles per second for 100,000 years.

   You would pass the earth in a tiny fraction of the first second and never see it…and then travel an additional 100,000 years! So, consider, there are an estimated one trillion galaxies in the universe! And we are on this tiny planet, somewhere amidst just one of those galaxies. Hmmm…somehow, getting cut off in traffic doesn’t seem such a big deal!

   God said, “I’ve set my glory above the heavens.”

   Dear friends, how small is our world, how big is our God?

   Because on the other hand, there’s God’s detail, His intricacies, His minute perfection. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Our beginning lies in one microscopic cell from our mother, and one from our father. These two cells form one new cell, with a totally new and unique set of DNA which contains three billion characters of code. This one tiny cell contains all the information needed to produce you! The single cell eventually gives way to 75 trillion cells in the human body. Every one of these cells has all three billion bits of our genetic code.

   If I were to read your DNA, reading one character per second, night and day, it would take me 96 years just to read the description of you! Unique from any other human ever…

How small is our world, how big is our God?

   So, our vast and magnificent Creator God, pours Himself out for us and desperately wants good for us.  Our tender God who even pleads with us at times. Let us remember all of who He is!

   So friends, how small are the things we give our time, our mental energy, our youth to…how much credence do we give to the minutiae of our lives and how narrowed is our focus…how small is our world…in our world, we can look around for ourselves, be still and know that He formed us and spoke His perfect creation into existence…we can look up and consider the heavens that He formed from the breath of His mouth…those things He spoke into being, planned from eternity past, and yet He watches over us in every intimate detail…how big is our God?

   Let us see the fullness of who He is!  Never lose sight of His magnificence, His perfection, His power, and in-so-doing honor Him in reverence and great awe!  The One who is, who was, and who is to come…the great “I Am.” To Him and Him alone is all honor and power and glory, forever and ever!

 

Devakut – “Clinging”

Running With Yeshua

There is a thrill in marathoning. On this particular day, I was flying down the streets of Foxboro, Mass., exceeding my expectations and proudly receiving encouragement from spectators who noticed my New Hampshire singlet. I was clearly on my way to a personal best and was feeling exuberant at mile 18. By mile 23…I was laying on the ground. Not only had I hit the wall and collapsed, but my exuberance quickly changed to humiliation and self-deprecation. Then, in my mid-twenties, my worth was only as good as my most recent race success.

Things are different now, some 45 years later. My worth isn’t about me anymore.

As I explore this life of grace, moving away from the foolish notion that I can manipulate Adonai’s feelings toward me through my behavior, I see His Word in a whole different light. Simply stated, the goal of our walk with Yeshua is NOT the pursuit of holiness, rather, it IS the pursuit of relationship with Him. With that in mind…some thoughts…

I frequently ask Adonai how to go about having relationship with Him. Of course, on one hand we ARE already in relationship with Him by virtue of Him having placed his Holy Spirit within us. As a result, we have been restored to life and are eternally His. Nonetheless, our BEST life here is realized when we understand and participate in His presence. I now realize that having “ears to hear” and “eyes to see” aren’t really activated without my expectation of Him speaking, revealing Himself to me and acknowledging His desire to BE with me. Perhaps we could call that, Our Garden Relationship.

Interestingly, the Hebrew word, “devakut (דבקות)” means clinging or cleaving to the Lord in communion and surrender to His grace. And in that, I notice a great irony in the phrase “surrender to His grace.” For instance, in war, surrender leads to captivity and degradation. Likewise, surrender to the world leads one to that same condition. God’s surrender however, accomplishes the exact opposite, that is, OUT of captivity to true freedom, and OUT of humiliation and degradation.

Having just celebrated Pesach (Passover), we were encouraged to see ourselves as being personally set free from Egypt. The word Egypt in Hebrew is “mitzraim (מצרים).” That word can sometimes mean “an enclosure” from the verb “tzur” meaning to bind or confine. Conversely, salvation (ישועה), means release from constraint, to deliver or set free. The very purpose of creation is to be set free by God’s redemptive love given through Yeshua. We in Yeshua have been personally redeemed from Egypt (Mitzraim). May our Yeshua, our salvation, cause us to both see and hear Him today as we cling to Him and enjoy the freedom He has given us!

Shalom!

James Mark

 

Noticing

    

Much of my life has been spent in folly, trying to engineer how best to have relationship with God. And in those attempts to define and confine Hashem to my finite understanding of relationship, I am in essence putting myself in charge of the matter. After all, in my vain attempts to formulate some quality of being with Him, I am still relying on myself. (“Am I speaking to Him enough, am I listening enough, am I including Him enough” …on and on it goes).

     I continue to learn about resting in Him and yielding, but honestly, most often I wrestle that away from Him. However, today, in Home Depot, buying cow manure for my garden (lol), Abba showed me a truer way to have communion with Him. By simply…noticing…

     When I come to my senses and realize that I am relying on myself to pursue relationship with God, I let that become my cue to rather let Him come to me. All that is required in that scenario is ‘noticing.’

     So, what was this God-moment today in the garden section of Home Depot? Was it perhaps a magnificent demonstration of His power? Maybe the cloud of His shekinah glory over the annuals, or the healing of a gardener with back problems due to excessive weeding, or maybe multiplied bags of fertilizer?

     Naw…a baby smiled at me.

     As I headed toward the checkout line with my fertilizer, I noticed a man carrying his little boy, perhaps 10 months of age. As the man was walking, the baby was looking back at me. We locked eyes and I smiled. The little guy’s response nearly brought me to my knees. He smiled a huge, toothy grin and I was suddenly flooded with emotion. Now to the little boy, I probably just reminded him of his grandpa. But the Lover of my Soul was behind that smile. In that moment, I saw the Lord smiling at me. I cannot describe how I knew I was in Abba’s Presence; I wasn’t looking for it. But there was no question in my heart that our Creator Himself was beaming at me. You might think that silly but admit it…you’ve had experiences like this.

     In this simple exchange with this little fella, I was reminded to cease striving in my efforts to connect with the Lord. And while I do understand that this process of relinquishing ‘my efforts’ to Him will continue, today, in a simple little baby’s smile, I was reminded of His pursuit of us, His delight in us, His rooting for us. I wonder how often I miss these intimate exchanges with Him.

Dear Abba,

     Recently, the thought came to me…I cannot love You enough. I simply cannot, anymore than I can be perfect in all my ways! My walk has been characterized by self-deprecation because I unknowingly rely on myself. And while that has been softened by embracing the true gospel of grace, I still find myself in shame because I accuse myself of not loving You enough (i.e., spending enough time with You, focusing on You enough, etc.). But in thinking this way, I am doing the same thing I’ve always done…self-effort and self-reliance. On one hand, I say that my hope is in You, but if it is up to me to ‘love You enough,’ then I am still factoring myself into the salvation equation. In reality, even my love for You, comes from You!

      American writer Miles Stanford, in his book The Green Letters (1964), wrote the following:

“To be disappointed with yourself, is to have believed in yourself.”

     That quote has haunted me for years. Friends, there is absolute joy in the cessation of striving, and in so doing, you notice God relating to you…even through the smile of a baby. Yesterday evening, I ‘noticed’ the fragrance of honeysuckle on the bike path. In the morning, I ‘noticed’ four species of bird with red coloring visiting my feeder (rose-breasted grosbeak, red-bellied woodpecker, downy woodpecker, house finch). Abba is a great communicator of His love for us…we honor Him by ‘noticing.’

     Please be bold haverim and share with us a simple God-moment you’ve had such as my experience today! Shalom!

 

First Encounters

   I was weary…the lonely road was especially deserted that holiday weekend as I returned from a late shift around midnight. It was one of those autopilot drives that evokes a “oh, how did I get here,” reaction once you’re in the driveway.

     Only this time I was rudely awakened a mile from the house when a cat darted out from nowhere in front of me…followed by the sickening sound of his collision with my car. I’m guessing you know that awful feeling of hitting an animal on the road…this was my first and I immediately pulled over to search for the cat. He was still alive and had crawled under a blue stationary mailbox. He was bleeding and broken and I felt horrible. Able to gather him into my jacket and then the front seat, I determined to get him help should he make it through the night. That last mile home felt like forever and the poor animal made it evident the pain she was in.

     I experienced compassion as I never had in those moments and when I attempted to retrieve her from the seat after reaching home, she writhed in agony and fell onto the street near the curb. A kind of helplessness and inner turmoil overtook me, and I fell to my knees, begging god to relieve the cat from her suffering. I’m not sure I had ever been so earnest on any previous occasion. The moment I opened my eyes from my impassioned plea, I saw the cat jerk…and then die immediately…God responded to my prayer and my jaw dropped.

But wait…why would Adonai respond to someone who neither knows him nor desires to know Him? I journeyed those days with a nebulous God-consciousness and even attended a church…should someone ask, I would identify myself as a Christian, but with no understanding of what that meant, much less having a relationship with Him. But all I knew at that moment was that God listened and responded and it startled me.

     A few weeks later, my 49-year-old father had a massive heart attack and wasn’t expected to make it through the night. Once again, I went to a quiet place and begged/pleaded with God to spare my father. Dad survived and lived to age 84.

    With these two events, I became convinced that all I needed was to be passionate and sincere in my request and that God would grant it.

     However, when the next life crisis came my way, I went back to my quiet place…same passion, same sincerity…and the result? The life crisis multiplied greatly.  So, what in the world was all that about?

Dear Abba,

     It’s been almost 50 years since that first encounter with You. When I consider those events, I realize now that you were wooing me…revealing Yourself to a lost boy who wouldn’t come to You for another seven years. It is Your kindness that reaches out to us before we reach out to You. It is Your majesty in creation, Your order out of chaos that reaches out to us, saying, “come let us reason together, though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.”

     How is it, that You, Creator of all things, would encounter a lost boy in the late hours of a summer night and demonstrate Your existence to him, before he was even remotely interested in You? As the psalmist said, “what is man that You are mindful of him and the son of man that You consider him?”

     But You are the great lover.  And lovers woo. Lovers make the object of their affection feel valued and unique and adored. You did that…and then you patiently waited seven years for me to respond back to you, after you first responded to me. Your Ruach continues to woo me, no matter where I am, no matter what I’m doing. Todah rabbah Abba, baruch atah Adonai! Thank you so much Father, blessed are you Lord!  

     I imagine that most of us have had Abba woo us before we set our heart on Him. Do you remember a time you reached out with kavanah (the Hebrew word for impassioned, fervent prayer), even before you truly identified with Messiah Yeshua?

     With that wooing, we see an aspect of Adonai’s character…that of the great lover who pursues us, giving us a glimpse into His reality. I would like to suggest that wooing isn’t limited to His demonstration and/or response to us.  Consider Eliyahu’s (Elijah’s) encounter with Hashem in the cleft of the rock:

“1 then he said, “come out and stand on the mount before Adonai.”[b] behold, Adonai was passing by—a great and mighty wind was tearing at the mountains and shattering cliffs before Adonai. But Adonai was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but Adonai was not in the earthquake. 12 after the earthquake a fire, but Adonai was not in the fire. After the fire there was a soft whisper of a voice. 13 as soon as Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle…”

Do you sense the intimacy accompanying this revelation to Eliyahu. So now, it’s your turn. Tell us how Adonai reached out to you or touched you before you knew or even cared about Him.

Shalom,

James Mark