Sorrow = Opportunity
“Sometimes the evidence of our senses and the testimony of the world’s wisdom are plain wrong. Sometimes the Lord is busy forging victory when the mind expects only defeat.”
– Tessa Afshar ~ Land of Silence
There is something universal about every human condition. Language does not change it. Geography does not change it. Personality, nationality, and religious tendencies do not change it. Love that lights the eyes of a soul, looks the same no matter the color of irises. Arms that reach out in tenderness can be of any color or size, dressed or naked. Sorrow, despair, agony and depravity are all pregnant with God-touched opportunity.
These are the conditions that form the questions of “when, how, where, and why” from the depths of souls world-wide. Embalmed with freedom or anchored to yet more slavery; sorrow seeks to unhinge the hands that lay hold of anything but the One who made them. Human beings are always at the peak of ability to learn when their mind, body and emotions are tossed into the sea of adversity, trial, suffering, loss, and torture. We can learn in happiness, but it doesn’t retain the depth of engraving on the memory as sorrow. Hence why we forget the good so quickly when hardship starts to ink it’s way into our grey matter. Likewise we recall so well the negative and hopelessness colors our spirits so immediate we feel shot into another world in an instant. There is no place else that brings us all to a unified place in the human condition. It’s often said love is such a place but I beg the differ. There are too many illusions of love for such a unity to be possible. No one is can paint sorrow with different colors. It’s very darkness outlines the same light no matter the shadow of the Sun or moon in the sky.
All my life it seems as if God has placed some special favor on me. Where my sister seemed to struggle and have to push for the simplest joys. Yet at every turn, our sorrows held the same DNA of pain and questions. Circumstances are the greatest illusions of favoritism. As I write, my sister sits where she is full of joys, doubts, gratitude, and questions the same as I. Yet, on the outside anyone would say she has it harder than I. Often I’m tempted to agree. Yet in each of our varying circumstances these things are the same: We are in places where God has provided abundantly, yet wonder what is next. We struggle with hurt, resentment, anger, bitterness, physical deficiencies, heart aches and knee bloodying prayers for our children and grandchildren; loved ones, we both sing, we both cry, we both are loved and misunderstood. That which makes us up inside, pours out from within, and effects us from without though incredibly unique, we are the same. Both of us are being taught everyday Who made us and why. We both have illusions, deceit, kindness, generosity, compassion, tendencies to complain, aches and pains, things hidden and things exposed, things being revealed, things on the way to unveiling, promise, hope and despair and sorrow.
The purpose of comparison is not for comparison itself, but for defining the difference between what’s on the outside and what’s on the inside. Outside looks different, inside does not.
“God’s Spirit can ride a puny breeze as well as a hurricane.”
– Tessa Ashfar ~ Land of Silence
Psalms 16:11
You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is unbounded joy, in Your right hand eternal delight.
The Word of God is true for one and all, all the time, everywhere. The above scripture offers the same salve to the human heart no matter their circumstances. Sorrow is an opportunity to watch God become a heavenly Father for every soul on earth. Pain provides the path to true knowing who we are and why we’re here. God alone can provide the answers to our questions, and keeps them all open-ended. The answer today will not be the same as tomorrow. Except that Who He is and how He loves us, desires us and reaches for us, never changes and carries not one ounce of favor for one over the other. Our circumstances can not and must not define the riches of His glory. Circumstances are all of the following: outward characters, features; singleness or married, childless or having children, wealthy or poor, sick or healthy, geographic locations, personality traits, internal make up, extroverted or introverted, talented with art or talented with intellect, high or low IQ’s. To name a few, but hitting the main things. Everyone one of those things are the intricate detail drawn by the Hand of Adonai on each one for their good and those they effect and His glory. Sorrow gives us the glasses to correct our vision in life; for joy is it’s designation and it won’t stop until it’s reached its goal. For you, for me, thanks be to God! The definition of true joy for every soul He made is Himself, nothing more and absolutely nothing less.
In a world that is changing and churning, this one constant remains. Psalms 16:11, Is. 50:4…
Jeremiah 31:25
For I have satisfied the weary and filled the needs of all in distress.
Matthew 11:28
Come to ME, all of you who are struggling and burdened, and I will give you rest.
The reason why our Messiah invited all who are struggling and burdened but not “happy” is because we all are struggling and burdened, not happy. Oh we may have joy and contentment, but they always come after sorrow, and after we have accepted His invitation to receive such rest. Waiting on Him, running to Him is the only path to such joy and peace/rest. For each of us this is the same. Sorrow aimed at His unveiling, His presence, His company, His love, His compassion, His comfort, His answer, His directions, His discernment, this is sorrows purpose. Don’t miss the opportunity. Don’t be tempted to compare, or focus on the outward appearance of things. Hold on to Yeshua (Jesus) our Messiah and Master… and let Him order up the exact prescription for your knowing Him. Pray for each other thusly. Praise Him in their joys and walk beside them in their sorrows.
♡ Grace and peace to you in Yeshua the Messiah ♡
The Red Carpet
Tonight, my heart is heavy.
The pollution of lies and loss of beauty that can come only from The Truth, weighs down the soul created for The Creator and a garden.
“When did all this happen?”, I’m tempted to ask. Yet, only a fool can pretend they’ve been awake when they’ve actually been asleep. How did we get here? We slept, we dreamt, we pursued our own stuff, we fought the tide of truth that once was the black lines in the color book of life we were handed by people of conviction and integrity. People who fought for our freedoms that are gone now. Only the illusion that they remain, stays steady.
Our children, my grandchildren, now go to schools that ask them what kind of gender they want to be. People tear each other up with words about gender neutral bathrooms. (They actually debate about this!) Conversations and media are consumed with which of two evils we are doomed to have run our country next. Meanwhile all around the world, weather has turned frightful…millions have nothing. Elsewhere, wars and terror have wrung out the rest. Here in America, it’s subtle. Had to be. Free men and women can’t be put to sleep by Hitlers, Isis, and blatant corruption. No, they need to bleed out slow and unaware. Distraction is needed, then the poison can be administered. Dumb them down, put them to sleep.
These realities are hard, and here. If denied, it only speaks to the level of unconsciousness one is still really in. But…God has been at the helm the whole time. His Word so precisely accurate as always. Every prophecy exactly as written. This is the famine for the Truth. The clock winds down to the even uglier end. If you are thinking of more disasters and wars and famine at the last statement…you are still asleep. The ugliest part of the end is the lost souls, our brothers and sisters who will have been given the chance to reach for the Father, walking down the blood red carpet of Truth, Yeshua’s (Jesus’) blood to color the narrow road to get there; and turned away on their sleepy beds. The Truth is a Person, not a concept, not a theory, not an opinion, not a certain perspective – a Person, God – Himself. Its no more ” selectable” or a matter of choice than gender is!
I’m heavy towards that end, heavy about the dazed eyes I look into these days. With minds that truly believe the lies, small twisted truth, that has put to sleep the child of the womb He created. No, I’m not heavy, I’m heartbroken. As my Father’s heart breaks, I’m honored to be in unity with His pain, not just His joy.
There is a scripture I will leave this post with. It’s the Word of a Living God. This makes it powerful, WHO wrote/spoke/speaks it. Him, WHO still speaks – now without writing it as He did before. Yeshua’s work on the cross and rising again placed the pen and tablet in our individual hearts. Built the temple inside human flesh. Tore down the earthen frame and built it back again in three days. Sad, people are still looking for temples made of brick and mortar, lulled asleep by things of this world, with the famine of not being able to look within and “up”. Within to see the temple torn down, and “up” to Him who will build it within, at the slightest movement towards wanting Him and all He is, not in days…in micro-seconds that no one on earth can measure in light speed or sound. This Word is all that’s needed here in this blog, it will awake the sleeping soul. Or it will anesthetize it. The Truth does one or the other.
Any question as to Who’s in control here and shall ever be – is not in question. Who shall preside over this country, this world, the economy, the wars, the disasters – this has never changed. We can vote all we want, but His Word will stand.
Heavy nights, times like this happen, but every morning my Hope awakes me, reminds me, emboldens me. Wraps me up in His grace, mercy, and praise God Almighty – Truth. Famines have never left all to starve unto extinction. The closest anything has ever come to that was a flood! Not drought, not pestilence, not wars, but a flood! Something for The Truth seeker to ponder! But even then He brought out the Living to begin again. The dead were buried. None talk about the remains that are found of the human kind from that time. They have been found, and scientifically explained away upon heresy. Now dinosaurs are the remains people get excited about. It’s understandable why aliens and other worlds are a welcome respite to this one. He didn’t talk about that, so we can’t contradict Him!
2 Peter chapter 3. I won’t type this one out here. It’s worth the time and it takes so little to turn these pages and read it for oneself. Seek it. Even if you think you know it, ask God to show you where you don’t. The Living Word always has more to reveal if the One who wrote it is the true objective of the reader. No matter where we are in our walk with Him, He has lessons to infinity and delights to share it.
I’m rolling out the Red Carpet tonight. On this silly phone, downloading through this handy app. The true Red Carpet of the stars. Those invited to the “function” or event for which it’s rolled out are the weak, meek, humble, broken, poor – no money will get you in, no reputation, no prestige. Just naked humanity. (Not physically naked). If you walk this blood stained carpet, you’ll fall into the rushing Arms of Life. Truth shall wake you, break you, and begin anew to remind you Who made you and has you and shall ever keep you in delight and peace.This is the kind of freedom that can not be put to sleep.
Ephesians 5:8-17
For you used to be darkness; but now, united with the Lord, you are light. Live like children of the light, for the fruit of the light is in every kind of goodness, rightness and Truth – try to determine what will please the Lord. Have NOTHING to do with deeds produced by darkness, but instead EXPOSE them, for it is shameful even to speak of the things these people do in secret. But everything exposed to the light is revealed clearly for what it is, since anything revealed is light. This is why it says, “Get up, sleeper! Arise from the dead, and the Messiah will shine on you!” Therefore, pay careful attention to how you conduct your life – live wisely, not unwisely. Use your time well, for these are evil days. So don’t be foolish, but try to understand what the will of the Lord is.
May these Words become alive, the smelling salts to awaken, as the Living One wills…and make the dead alive again!
Grace and peace to you, in the Messiah, Yeshua.🙂
Hallmarks of Ownership
Matthew 25:34-46
Then the King will say to those on His right, “Come, you whom My Father has blessed, take your inheritance, the Kingdom prepared for you from the founding of the world. For I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you made Me your guest, I needed clothes and you provided them, I was sick and you took care of Me, I was in prison and you visited Me.” Then the people who have done what God wants will reply, “Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? When did we see You a stranger and make You our guest, or being clothes and provide them? When did we see You sick or in prison, and visit You?” The King will say to them, “Yes! I tell you that whenever you did these for one of the least important of these brothers of Mine, you did them for Me!”
Then He will also speak to those on His left, saying, “Get away from Me, you are cursed! Go of into the fire prepared for the Adversary and his angels! For I was hungry and you gave Me no food, thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink, a stranger and you did not welcome Me, needing clothes and you did not give them to me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.” Then they too will reply, “Lord, when did we see You hungry, thirsty, needing clothes, sick or in prison, and not take care of You?” And He will answer them, “Yes! I tell you whenever you refused to do it for the least important of these people, you refused to do it for Me!” They will go off to eternal punishment, but those who have done what God wants will go to eternal Life.
Yeshua spoke in parables, everything physical represents something in the Kingdom. With verses like the above it is very helpful to define what each physical thing is that we might better apply to our action and understanding.
It’s of little use to be literal at times. Hence there will be so many fooled into thinking by writing a check to the poor, needy, sick, and imprisoned – in their literal sense, that they did action on the Living Word.
Too keep this simple I’ll define each physical into the literal spiritual sense. With references for your own further study.
Hungry/food – Deut. 8:1-20; John 4:31-38; John 6:41-65
The food for the hungry is the Word of God, this is the food we are to feed on and feed others, just like physical food to sustain the body, the Word of God sustains the hearts, minds and souls of His people.
Water – John 4:13; John 7:37-39
Thirsty people need drink, water is “free” or at least it used to be. This water was the common drink given to anyone who thirst. To give a drink to someone thirsty is to pray for and with them. For the Holy Spirit is the water to the soul, since the Spirit lives inside of us, welling up and over-flowing as the scripture in reference speaks, this must be what drink can satisfy a thirst. We pour out our hearts for and with another, the mystery of the Spirit takes it from there. Water is an important study, it’s all over scripture and highly significant to read on and ask the Spirit to reveal all that can be within the context of the Living Word.
Sick/poor – Matthew 5:3
Again, follow Yeshua through His healings of the sick to find the true meaning of this word. We find that anything that does not operate according to the design of God is – sick, not functioning correctly. The poor can be a wealthy person, but their spirit is indeed destitute. Thus these two words can be spoken side by side.
Prisoners – same as above references, add John 3:31-36; Is. 61:1-2
There are prisoners literally in physical jail due to the prison that was within them. Bound and chained to the lack of food, water, clothing, that is needed for the soul to be fit for the Kingdom it was created for. We have been and are all prisoners. Our offenses worthy of death and imprisonment, our salvation an undeserved gift from a prison-bar breaking God.
Clothing – Col. 3:12-15; Romans 13:14; Phil. 2:1-5; Eph. 4:2, 24-32; 2 Cor. 6:6-10
When dealing with physical representations, always ask “What is their function?” Clothing is for protection. So to give or clothe someone, what does this look like other than physical clothes (which is just as important as with physical food and drink – not discounting the literal and physical). Clothing therefore can be many things such as, comfort, encouragement, exhortation, teaching, love, and so on.
When taken with this perspective, it’s easy to see how so many can miss the mark. Also note, Yeshua says the least important of these…many of us don’t feed, clothe, and visit those of our own immediate family and friends, much less those we’d deem not so important. It’s a humbling revelation.
Here’s very important questions to ask.
~ Do I study and watch and record God’s Word and His work in my life, and then thereby teach it to my children? Or do I leave that to their Sunday school teachers? It’s one thing to say you put clothes on their backs, food on the table, paid the water bill, and kept them in line, but do the standards of the real Kingdom come alive in your home? We can not feed, nourish with drink, clothe that which we do not receive and learn to provide. We must on a personal level meet with the Provider everyday to provide the things He is speaking about in the introductory scripture above.
~ Which side ( right or left ) of the Lord do I find myself on in the light of what I’ve just read?
~ What, Lord, would You have Me do now, to enter into Your will for my contribution to the Kingdom?
~ When giving my tithe, do I tithe only money, or 10% of my time, talent, everything I am given?
~ What is my motive when I give? Remember King David, as he prayed, “Examine me, oh God, see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting”
Without this examining we shall always find false motive to our “help”. When we give, feed, fill a cup for, clothe, and visit prisoners, it’s should always bring you to worship and give God the glory. Emptying us of all our self-satisfaction. This indeed does so, as we will and don’t have anything to give without Him.
Who do we say that our Master is? With our lives, our minutes, hours, resources, and gifts? This ultimately shall define right or left of the Lord, and hallmark our Ownership.
May God be with you all, and call you ever more into His eternal delight, His Kingdom, His ways, His thoughts and His heart. Shalom
Doing is Believing
John 14:21
Whoever has My commands and keeps them is the one who loves Me, and the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him.
Remember the movie in the picture above? The Master told the student to wax the cars, and was specific how, paint the fence, sand the floor, and so on. Days of all these “chores” in the mind of Daniel was putting off his training to become an expert in karate. Tedious and mundane, hard, sweaty work, and days later irritation and confusion drive the student to challenge the Masters methods. Everyone in the audience had to pull their jaw up off the floor after the Master showed the student how each task had indeed trained without the mindset of fighting. It was brilliant! The student paid very close attention to do all that was asked of him from that point, realizing that even if it seemed irrelevant, he’d learn later, there is no such thing.
It was a cunning and master stroke of writing – that movie. I know Who was behind it. The Master of all, Adonai, the creator of the Universe. This was the purpose of the movie, not the love story, though it was nice (clean, remember those days?), not the picking on and fighting back of teenagers; but the contrast of two teachers and their students, their method and motive, how like mirrors the students of the bad teacher were, and yet unique, still individual Daniel was under the teaching hand of Miyagi. He taught through life, he taught through patience and peace, first to achieve those things in the student, then to practice it in karate.
The quote above in the picture is exactly what God does. There’s a saying; “man says, ‘show me and I’ll trust you,’ God says, ‘trust Me and I’ll show you.’
A true statement! Horizontally (man to man) this is exactly how we should be. Vertically (man to God) trust comes with much earned credit from God. It should be automatic from us, then He shows us, like Miyagi how the obeying of Him has armed us, humbled us, and transformed us into the people He created us to be when we were not yet a physical reality. His commands are written in the Word, but also given into our daily lives (should we ask and listen) thus His voice leads and guides us as it did Yeshua (Jesus) and we become like our Savior. Yet, Yeshua is Yeshua and we are who we are, I’m Lisa, not Yeshua, but like Him in that I listen to and obey the Father. My believing becoming more and deeper with each action taken upon hearing His instruction. Countlessly my jaw is dropped after doing what He said, and impatiently challenging His ways, He shows me what each task taught without me knowing what was being fortified in my muscle and memory with each obedience. Thus I have a living, breathing, relationship with the Master of the Universe! Like the wind, I never know from whence I came or where I’m going at the onset of doing as He says, but I always come away full of assurance that I’m in His will and being grown into something I couldn’t imagine on my best day I could be. His child! A living Word! His love poured out through me! Like Yeshua, but yet never exactly as His perfection in such obeying far exceeds the human reckoning. God doesn’t want a bunch of ‘saviors’, He sent One, and that was and is all that’s needed. He wants children, children to come home to the real Life that He made for them.
What joy it brings to know my trust will never be ill placed in Him! Adventures follow the task of obeying! Jaw dropping moments, where my “floor sanding, fence painting, car washing” duties prove to be far more the object of the desired result than learning kicks and hits!
May the Lord give you many jaw dropping moments as these last days unfold, and may our trust in Him become solid and steady with each leap to obey! Thanking and praising Him with each action, each word, each thought. Glory to God in the Highest!
♡ Grace and peace in Yeshua the Messiah ♡
The Burning of God
What nature of God should consume as fire a child He so beloves? What is this Holy fire that over-takes a bush, without destroying it and spreading is wrath with it’s surrounding neighbors? Is it possible that inside of me, lays a landscape of tree and brush that builds idols and calls my worship to the created itself; that must be such that the fires of jealousy begin to burn it from the One who made it and me? If so, how do I begin to walk into the flames of His desire to purify me? Ahhh, how we avoid pain! Forgetting so often that it lays within a corrupted and broken part, the relief we seek is not so much the healing of the wound as the ridding of the effect of it (pain). Cause and effect. What so causes us to ignore the greatest feature of our salvation (cleansing)? I love the thought that God sees me as I am complete, growing into this completeness or capable of such that He sees. Each stage of my growth a celestial celebration. Yet, how can I stop this urge to run from how I see myself as ineffective, delinquent in His eyes? I have days, that my feet have put on their running shoes as I move towards His presence, it seems, quite apart from my awareness. I look down and wonder, “how did that happen?”
This house-buying/moving process has been a lesson of burning away the destructible I knew not lay within me. As you know, as my absence of post may indicate, the recovery time from the burns is long. Though not without it unshakeable foundations laid upon the waste of smoldering ruins. Spring rains, and gentle breezes have produced new flowers that could not have grown without the fiery blazes He blew inside to wake me. Most days all I was able to do was will myself to lay still while the flames overtook me. The urge to run and escape, fight or flight, so cemented in my habits and reactions, almost too much to train. My willing heart, a thing only He can move, was His grace. I know something of Yeshua’s (Jesus’) fortitude to walk, though heavy with pain, towards the flame of the Cross. His voice ringing in my ears, “Do as I did, do.”
Before the house-hunting escapade, I thought I was ready to do away with possession and things. Indeed, I was more ready than before, as the desire was the flickering flame to begin the first fire of purity. All great things start small. Our Savior was a seed, embryo, fetus, babe; before He was a man. A mountain was a bubbling cauldron of lava before it became a breathtaking appendage of earth. There is a striking balance now seen, between really receiving the blessed things He gives us, without guilt or wondering if it’s right, and feeling deserving. ..wanting more. Another balance or clearing of perspective; that the wanting of more after a bestowing of blessing in things here on earth, turned inward to see the true desire is the wanting more of Him, not the things.
The startling thought, though still, is that nothing resulting in the process guarantees my fingers shall not hold tightly things again. It’s a controlled burn, all things God does inside, this side of eternity. I think perhaps this is what makes His ways so undesirous to people. We like a ‘start and finish’ kind of life. No dragging out of things. We weary easy of all things that go on for an extended amount of time. If the wind blows for days on end, we pray for stillness. Upon granting that, the sweltering heat with no breeze then compels us to pray for the wind again. Rain upon rain without ceasing drenches the spirit and begs for dry wind. Flooding the senses with moist and mildewy perspectives. Left to us, our ordered climates are always to our comfort, not at all to the growth and strength building, stretching, He has willed for us. The earth must expand and contact, remember it’s in labor; but also that all things that are alive must breathe! So, too, are we who call ourselves the Forgiven Children of a Consuming God. The only cure we know this side of heaven, is the antidote called – waking. The Spirit comes inside to wake us everyday to the Kingdom of heaven, which would rise within us, if we will but let go of the world we see. Grace not only pours out love and faith on the undeserving, it stirs the flames of that which will purge us of all that would fuel a destructive soul. It’s hard, and painful and requires a Holy endurance that can only be found in the fiery presence of God.
One day a finish shall reign, an end to the process of purification. Oh! What what a day that will be! Or…mayhap – not? Perhaps the only difference will be that we will no longer resist it, it will no longer be considered a “pain”. Oh that God is answering my prayer that my comfort won’t call the shots to my living anymore!
I leave you with some ***quotes from George MacDonald*** in his sermon called Consuming Fire. What perspective our Lord bequeathed to him! So great a heritage we have! Where knowledge brings true growth -Life! And that knowledge moves our feet into action. Obeying the laws of God as joy.
***Nothing but the burning love of God can rid sin out of anywhere. It is the law of nature – that is, the law of God – that all that is destructible shall be destroyed. When that which is immortal buries itself in destructible – when it receives all it’s messages from without, through the surrounding region of self, and none from within, from the eternal doors opening inward into God’s presence – it cannot, through immortal still, know it’s own immortality. The destructible must be burned out of it, or begin to be burned out of it, before it can partake of eternal life.
God is against sin: insofar as, and while, they and sin are one, He is against them – against their desires, their aims, their fears and their hopes. And thus He is altogether and always for them.
God thinks and feels against vileness and selfishness, of the unrest of inassuageable repulsion with which He regards such conditions. God thus revealed Himself in such anger so the thoughtless people, fearing somewhat to do as they would, might leave a little room for that grace to grow in them, which would at length make them see that evil, and not fire, is the fearful thing.
A chimney above a huge house indicates the greatness of the building below, as the volcanoes of the world tell us how much fire is necessary to keep the old earth warm. For it is not the sun itself that warms the planet. The earth is like the human heart. The great glowing fire below us is God in the heart of the earth, and the great sun is God in the sky, keeping it warm on the other side. Our gladness and pleasure, our trouble when we do wrong, our love for all about us, that is God inside us. All the beautiful things and loveable people, all the lessons we get from life, and whatever comes to us, is God on the outside.***
– George MacDonald
The God of Shalom (peace – completeness) brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Yeshua, by the blood of an eternal covenant. May God equip you with every good thing you need to do His will; and may He do in us whatever pleases Him, through Yeshua the Messiah. To Him be the glory forever and ever, amen!
– Hebrews 13:20-21
♡ Grace and peace in Yeshua the Messiah ♡
Unfolding My Wings One Day at a Time
buttrflygrl14
