Writing Through the Bible in a Year

Today’s Reading: Deuteronomy 32:1-34:12

You know, it’s amazing to me how I’ve read some of these things time and time again and never picked up on the weight of significance that they have. In reading today in Deuteronomy I was, of all places, sitting on my bathroom floor. I had stayed up late last night finishing a post and so my husband and I both inadvertently overslept this morning. Which consequently meant that I didn’t get my snuggle time with Jesus this morning like I usually do. Instead I started my day with the morning chaos of getting two males ready for school and work and out the door all with a four-year-old girl hanging on my leg begging to watch Phineas and Ferb. Sigh… not my preferred relaxing way to start the day, but I’m not complaining, all of that is a tremendous blessing and I appreciate it greatly! In fact I wouldn’t know what I would do without it; we have fun in the morning. So having my morning routine disrupted meant that I was forced to grab my Bible, lock myself in the bathroom for about thirty minutes and devour what I could from His word before going any further into my day. And there, in the midst of my back leaning against the vanity doors, toes perched against the wall, Bible teetering on my knees, no pen to take notes, daughter knocking “Mommy….” I noticed something. The majority of what we read today and yesterday was curses, darkness, dread and condemnation – not very fun to read about and start your day with… unless you know the end of the story. There I was on the cold linoleum floor and the Holy Spirit ever so softly whispers “He took it all”. I wept.

Jesus took it all. Every curse that we’ve spent the last two days reading about, Jesus took them; every one of them, He took it upon Himself at the cross. For our sake, for you, for me, for our children and our children’s children God put all our darkness on Jesus. Jesus knew no sin; He went through His entire life without sinning. And yet here I am, when I was focused on the law and couldn’t go an hour without sinning! Jesus took it all so that through Him, His sacrifice, His blood, we might become the righteousness of God. US, righteous. Jesus saved us from the law, He became the curse for us. Wow! What a mighty God we serve! Lord Jesus thank You! May we live this day in absolute awe of the sacrifice that You made all for us!

Jesus Paid it all by Kristian Stanfill

Today’s Reading: Deuteronomy 29:1-31:30

Yesterday while writing I stumbled over something that rocked my world. Love, God’s love, is perfected with us. God isn’t complete without us, just like my grandpa whose wife just went home to heaven a few months ago. The other day he said to me “I never knew how much it would hurt”. To be without this woman of his dreams, the partner of his soul, it hurts. Without the object of his love he is in pain, excruciatingly so. God feels that without us, He is in excruciating pain without us in His life. I can’t imagine the pain that Jesus felt on the cross, physical and spiritual, but I am imagining that it was something akin to a birthing pain. The kind of pain that you endure because you know that the reward that comes from that pain is so very worth the cost. The joy that comes from holding that baby in your arms makes the pain of birthing it fade into nothingness. The joy that Jesus feels, holding you in His arms, filling you with His Spirit, loving others through your arms and your words and your deeds, it’s all worth it for Him. And because His Spirit is within you, like a husband within his wife, the more you get to know His gentle nudging and groaning the easier it is to respond to Him. I have found that often times it is not in the manner that most people would expect but rather at times that love comes out in a convicting way through the truth that can sometimes hurt. That doesn’t make it any less the truth or love. My husband tells me when he is frustrated with me, when he is proud of me, and when he is pleased with me. But he is a very quiet man and often times I have to draw it out of him, God can be like that. It has taken me years to learn how to read my husband’s feelings and I’m still not that great at it. The same is true with God, our union with Him is one of give and take, gentle nudges in one direction or the other. Yet at the same time it is also late night conversations in the dark through tears and laughter in the park over the funny things the animals are doing at your feet. It’s through telling glances over the dinner table, a conversation with your eyes; that’s what being married to God is all about. It’s a constant conversation in all the different forms of communication. We wouldn’t dream of only talking to our spouse once a week for an hour. Yet with God it’s the common concept that as long as we go to church and spend our time there every week then we’re doing what God wants us to do. If I went to visit my husband at work for an hour a week, but never talked to him any other time during the week would that make any sense? For the longest time it was my belief that as long as I did all the right things I was doing what would please God. Little did I understand at the time that what pleases God the most is when we acknowledge His presence.

Several years ago a movie by the name of Jerry Mcguire came out, perhaps you’ve heard of it, and there was a scene in it that became very well known. The main character Jerry and his girlfriend were standing in an elevator with another couple that just happened to be deaf. As the elevator lifted them all higher to their destinations the deaf couple silently signed to one another with definite looks of complete and total adoration towards one another and then the doors opened and they exited the elevator. Jerry turned to his girlfriend and asked “what did he say?” and she told him “He said, ‘You complete me’.” Then through the course of the movie Jerry and his girlfriend end up splitting up, he hits the big time and once there realizes that it means nothing to him without someone to share it with so he goes speeding back to his girlfriend’s house where she’s having a party and he storms in the door, says “hello” and then enters into this big long drawn out speech about how much he loves and needs her and none of the success meant anything without her and she finally stops him and says “You had me at hello”. *romantic sigh*

There God was up on His throne, He had it all, fame, fortune, power, prestige but it meant nothing without someone to share it with. His life was hollow without us! How awesome is that??? We complete HIM! We are His other half, His love, His Beloved. That’s how He sees us, His Beloved.

Does He complete you? Does God’s Spirit fill you up in ways you never knew you were empty? He can! But He’s a gentleman, He stands at the door and knocks… and then waits for you to open the door to Him. He will never force His way into your heart, He will wait to be invited. But OH! Once He is invited in you will never want Him to leave. You won’t be able to imagine your life without Him, because He DOES complete you in ways that you never knew He could. God has a way of making your life whole in ways that you will make you simply shake your head in disbelief. I keep finding myself saying “God, how can you be this good to me?” I see Him everywhere and in everything now.

Today my daughter and I went on a walk in the park where the trees grow right up next to the trail.

Those trees are filled with life, from birds

to bees, squirrels and chipmunks the lifesongs of all that surrounded us simply resonated. At one point there was this sharp chirping sound that was coming from a fairly low spot in the trees very near us. Keeping my eyes trained on where I thought the sound was coming from I slowly crept closer to it, camera in the ready and then I spotted the noisemaker, a chipmunk on a twig! I’m not sure that I’d ever been that close to one before today. As we walked I was in awe of the way that the sun warmly stroked the heads of some of the flowers while others immediately next to those in the sun were in the cool dappled shade from the trees’ leaves above. I was amazed at how the power of the perfume of a stand of flowers could overwhelm my senses as I passed them by. I was intrigued by a side trail that led to I knew not where, only to look closer and see God’s glory reflecting from the face of a lone flower on the side of the mystery dirt path. To me, to see nature, God’s creation is to marvel at God Himself. To know an artist you look at their work, to know an author your read their books, to know a friend you talk to them. Delve deeper into your faith, test yourself and your motives today. Are you operating on a surface level in your relationship with Jesus? Are you only going through the motions of faith, or are you soaring above the storm through faith? Question yourself, how have I seen God today? Where have I seen God today? Have I been Jesus for someone today? What you do for the least of these you do for Him.

Pray

Read: Deuteronomy 27:1-28:68

Well, today’s the day we come to the passage of scripture that I’ve been dreading and looking forward to the most. It’s the if-then statement of blessings and curses. For anyone who is a student of ancient law you know this section very well… I know I do! This is the section of scripture that almost killed me. You see, I had discovered God, like, REALLY discovered Him; I came to the eye opening experience that God isn’t just some religion He’s REAL! The God I had learned about my entire life was, well is, real. I was so in awe of this creator God wanting a relationship with me that I was desperate to please Him. I was so in love with this man named Jesus that I wanted to DO something to gain His attention, His favor, His love and approval. Well, I’ve always been fond of the Old Testament, the stories, the people, the rules – so clear cut, like bold black and white drawings it was so easy to see who was in the right and who was in the wrong. I could read those rules and follow them and KNOW that I was pleasing God, right? I could do everything that everyone on the radio, behind a pulpit or behind a pen told me to do and I could know that I was gaining God’s favor right? Oh, so wrong! It makes me want to weep remembering the cords of religion that I tied around myself during that time in my life. I was trying so hard to please God and by doing so I was making Him weep. I was trying so desperately to be someone else when all He wants me to be is who HE made me to be – Imperfect ME.

I went to extremes to try and please God, I was exhausting myself trying to make Him happy with me and He lovingly sent me several messengers to tell me that He was happy with me and to stop trying so hard to please Him. But I didn’t listen. I didn’t listen because I was afraid. I was afraid that if I did something wrong, if I tripped and fell in my faith that God would get angry and curse me. I was spending so much time reading in the Old Testament without reading it through the filter of the cross that I was falling deeper and deeper into a pit of despair. It got so bad that I was constantly asking God to forgive me throughout the day, hardly an hour would go by without a sin occurring and that was on the days when I hadn’t even left the house. And then I heard it, the words that changed my life. Not instantly mind you, the Accuser would have none of that, it was a word of hope that God planted deep into my heart so that it would be rooted deeply enough to withstand the tugging and clawing of the Accuser. That word was “forgiven”, past tense, as in it’s done, finished, over, I have been forgiven. Not He is in a constant state of forgiving me, I have been forgiven. Everything that I will ever do that stands against me in the court of Heavenly Law HAS BEEN (past tense) forgiven.

You see the key to my dilemma was that I was trying. I was trying to be good, I was trying to do the right thing, I was trying to love others with my works, I was trying trying trying trying… But that’s just it! His burden is EASY and His yoke is Light! When we are in Christ there is no trying, there is only doing or not doing. When Jesus died on the cross He went through so much more than all the physical things that we saw. Jesus was fulfilling a supernatural law, supernatural things generally can not be seen with physical eyes. Jesus endured so much MORE than we even know about, things that we could never or would never want to imagine, and part of my prayers this morning I was thanking Him for what He gave up for us on the cross, so much more than we could ever imagine and you know what He told me “I gave it all”. Jesus was not born of man, He was born from the Holy Spirit of God, He was fully man and fully God – how, we will never understand this side of heaven, but He was. That day on the cross Jesus did something, He took upon Himself a task that no man before or ever again will ever have to endure, He took upon Himself total and complete darkness. By allowing the Father to pile upon His shoulders the entirety of our sins He was allowing the Father to completely cover Him with darkness. The One who is The Light was smothered in our darkness. And for that time the candle was snuffed completely out. In Matthew 27:50 it tells us And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He gave up His spirit. His spirit, THE Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth and Love and Peace and Patience, the Spirit of joy and kindness, goodness and faithfulness, gentleness and self-control; the Spirit that made Him The Messiah He gave that up – for us. For me. For you. He gave up His absolute most precious thing in life and in death, He gave up His Spirit. The essence of who He is, He gave that up for us.

Why?

So that we could continue to worship Him in lip service only?

So that we could keep following the same religious rules that had tied up all the Israelites for thousands of years?

NO!

He gave up that most precious Spirit of His very own so that He could share it with us!

On the day that Moses walked down the mountain with the Law written on tablets of stone 3,000 people died. The Law is referred to as the ministry of death. Yet on the day that the Holy Spirit came on Pentacost and wrote itself onto hearts of flesh 3,000 people LIVED! The Holy Spirit, Jesus’ spirit, is the Law of Life, it is the ministry of love! Following Jesus isn’t about following rules made up by men, it’s about following the man you love!

Almost twelve years ago I stood next to my Beloved in the front of a church filled with family and friends and bedecked with flowers, satin bows and plenty of tulle where I vowed to never leave or forsake him, the love of my life. A few short years later he decided that he didn’t want to work in a factory for the rest of his life and that he needed to go back to school to be a mechanic for Mercedes. In order to do this our little family of three had to move three hours away from our quiet little small town life in our huge rental house and live in a tiny apartment in the suburbs of the big city of Chicago for two years. We would be on an extremely tight budget that left no room for frivolities like trips to the zoo with a two-year-old, or even weekend movies. Those were two hard dark years, but we found ways to have fun and enjoy where we were at the time. And above all that, we got through it too! At no point did I ever consider not going to that hard place with my husband, not once. Was I upset that he asked me to leave the comforts of our hometown, the closeness of our parents and everything that we had ever known about life? Yes, yes I was. But did I believe that he was asking this of me because he knew that in the end having endured this time of difficulty would benefit our family tremendously? Yes, yes I did. As much as I hated the thought of leaving my home and family, the thought of leaving my husband was unthinkable. I was more than willing to go wherever he thought was best for our family, and I agreed with him.

Love isn’t about rules. Love doesn’t insist on it’s own way. Love is about being with the one that you love. My husband and I don’t have a set of rules for each other that we follow; you have to take out the trash for me to love you, you have to make sure my laundry is always done for me to know that you love me, you have to have sex with me everyday… love isn’t like that! We would never dream of treating our spouses like that… yet it’s OK for us to think that that’s how Christ treats His bride – the Church? Do we really see Him that way? I did. I saw Him that way for a very long time. And you know what the result of that was? The harder I tried to be the perfect girl for Him, the more I failed.

My husband is an absolutely amazing man. He does so much for our family, he sacrifices so much of his time and his own plans just for us; to make us happy. And yes, there are times when he has to stick to his guns and do what he had originally planned because he knows that its important. But whenever possible he is more than willing to bend over backwards to spend time doing something to help us because he loves us. This weekend he had plans of his own, I’m honestly not sure what they were but I know that they were plans to work outside. I wanted to paint the kitchen before our daughter’s birthday party this coming weekend. And while he certainly didn’t have to help me, remember he had other plans that didn’t include painting the kitchen with me, he spent hours taping the cabinets and counter tops for me (I’m horrible at this part of painting) so that the finished product would look just that much better. Folks, that’s love. That’s love in the deepest sense of love, giving of yourself and your time and talents for the ones that you love and care the most about. Jesus did that for us on the cross and He’s still doing it today. At this very moment He is sitting at the right hand of God talking to the Father about us and what He, our husband, thinks is best for each and every one of us. That’s love. Jesus sitting as our advocate in the courtroom of heavenly Law where the Father is the judge and Satan the Accuser stands against us trying to remind us of our continual sins. Notice I said trying to remind US of our sins, he knows there’s no point anymore trying to tell the Father because Jesus is there, sitting in His own finished work of ultimate forgiveness as living breathing proof that we have already been forgiven for what we do and say.

Do you feel like I do right now? Like you need to DO something to thank God for this ultimate forgiveness, this radical grace? I was praying asking God what He thought I could do for my husband to thank him for what he did for me this weekend and God said “ask him what he desires from you”. And it clicked for me, “OK Lord, what do YOU desire from me?” Now, get ready to be blown over by His response because I know I was.

“Try”

“Uhhhh… try what Lord?”

“Try to be perfect”

“Um, Lord, haven’t we already been through this? I’ve tried that, I can’t do it remember the harder I tried to be perfect the more I failed miserably.”

“Beloved daughter, what is perfect?”

“Without flaw or blemish”

“and who made you?”

“You did”

“Do I make mistakes? Did I make you flawed?”

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” Psalm 139:13-14
ESV

“So is there any part of you, physically, emotionally, or spiritually that I did not make? Is there any part of you that is flawed or blemished in MY eyes, your maker?”

“No”

“Remember, My ways are not your ways; My standards are not your standards. I don’t expect you to be Me! I expect you to be who I made you to be, YOU!”

1 John 5:13-17 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know that and to believe the love that God has for us, God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as He is so also are we in this world.

As Jesus is so are we. Love perfected with us. We KNOW that we are living in Christ because He has given us His Spirit! This is the LIGHT! Jesus gave it all on the cross, He gave it all to us and the all that He gave us was Himself, His Spirit. And when we choose to get married to Jesus, whether standing at an altar in a church or in our backyards or even in our cars; we receive the greatest gift of all time – His Spirit! God, the Spirit of the living breathing God comes and lives in your flesh. And that Spirit of God that lives in us is nothing less than the Spirit of LOVE. But that’s not all, there’s more, by God’s Spirit of love living within us, love is perfected… love is perfected with us… love wasn’t perfect without us. God wasn’t perfect, isn’t perfect without you and me living in Him. Woah! That’s huge! To say God isn’t perfect without little old imperfect me, well, that’s a mighty statement. But there it is! And think about it, it makes perfect sense, love isn’t love without someone to love! In Christ’s love we are made perfect, the unpalatable is made palatable. Like a strawberry protein shake, the dusty pink powder is made useable when it is mixed with the milk, through Christ our imperfections are made perfect.

As Jesus is so are we.

Pray: Morning Prayer

Read: Deuteronomy 23:1-26:19

This is actually a word that I caught yesterday too but it wasn’t that word’s time quite yet; today is. The concept of a promised land isn’t just for the ancient Israelites, and it’s not just about heaven someday, did you know that it’s for you – today?!? It really is! Each and every one of us has a promised land, a place that God has promised us; whether it’s a physical land, material item, a calling, a career, a child, a dream fulfilled, you name it! I believe that in this life we can have many promised lands in many different areas of our lives, but honestly, there will be a main promised land. For me it is my calling, my ministry.

The promised land isn’t something that we originally seek on our own, rather it is something that God shows us a little peek of, promises it to be ours, and then we wait as patiently as possible while He prepares it for the proper time. The Promised Land, for each of us, is something different yet like Abraham waiting for Isaac, it may take many years to get to that place of promise, perhaps even generations. Abraham never lived to see all of his own promises from God completely fulfilled. Yes, he got to hold baby Isaac and watch him grow. He got to see, live in and walk through the promised land of Canaan but he never got to see his children live and thrive there; they moved to Egypt to be with Joseph before that could happen. But the promise was given to Abraham first then passed down through the generations until just the right time when Moses came along and God used him to lead their whole family out of slavery (plus a few Egyptians too)! The seed, or children, of Abraham had to wait a long time before their promised land was again in their sights, but God is faithful to His promises and He delivered them into it just like He said that He would; on the day that He said that He would!

In Genesis eleven when we first meet Abraham his father is traveling to Canaan with his son Abraham, Abraham’s wife Sarai and Abraham’s nephew Lot. Yet the traveling party never makes it all the way to Canaan, they settle in Haran instead, perhaps because Abraham’s father was sick, who knows. The Bible doesn’t say why they left in the first place or why they stopped short of their goal, but I find it very interesting that something within Abraham’s father inspired him to travel towards the land of promise and managed to get Abraham half-way there. After his father dies at Haran God comes to Abraham and says “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3) Notice here that God doesn’t point out that He’s going to take Abraham to Canaan, just to “the land that I will show you”, it just happens to be Canaan the land that his father had set out for years ago. The journey his father started Abraham finished.

In Genesis, chapter fifteen, God promises Abraham that He will bless him with a child to inherit the newly mentioned “very great” reward (Genesis 15:1). God also promises that this seed will be planted in the land that he is now standing. So while Abraham is in that place of promise as a stranger his child’s children will stand there as residents, deeply rooted in the rich soil of promise. Abraham carried on his own father’s dream of living in Canaan, his children will continue that dream of not only living there, but possessing it. They will not be foreigners, strangers in that land of Promise; they will live there, they will thrive there and it will be their possession. And what-da-ya know, low and behold a few hundred years later not only were the descendants (or seeds) of Abraham as numerous as the “stars in the sky”, but they were also the owners of their very own Promised Land! That place that generations ago God and Abraham stood and cut a covenant of blood signifying that God would uphold his promise to Abraham, they now stood in that promise, on that land, and it was theirs. They could hold that dirt in their hands and say “This is my possession”. They were able to plant seeds of their own into that dirt and watch them grow, bear much fruit and flourish!

Each and every one of us is filled with seeds of our own. Seeds of faith… seeds of hope… seeds of love… seeds of promise… the seeds of all the generations yet to come they are all within us. Being parents, mothers and fathers, we are in the process of tending to those seeds that have been planted and are now growing outside our bodies. As we tend to our children day in and day out we are filling them with new seeds. Seeds of faith, seeds of hope, seeds of love, seeds of promise, seeds that will continue to grow within our children to someday bear fruit to feed all the thousands of generations within them that are yet to come.

In today’s reading, chapter twenty-five verses five through ten, we read about the custom of taking your deceased brother’s wife and perpetuating his name. This section of scripture is special to me because it directly relates to the first Tamar’s story in Genesis thirty-eight. She was in this very situation where her first husband, Er, died before she had any children with him. So she was given to his brother, Onan, to bear a child in Er’s name. Only when Onan, went to “do his duty” he spilled his seed onto the ground denying her any hope of having a child with him in his brother’s name. Well, God really didn’t like how Onan was abusing Tamar and removed him from the picture. At the time Er’s youngest brother, shelah, was too young to fulfill his duty to Tamar; so Tamar’s father in law, Judah -great grandson of Abraham, sent her to live with her father. This was a huge disgrace to her. As Shelah grew of age Judah did not do what was right and give Tamar to him to be his wife so that she could bear sons in Er and Onan’s names through Shelah. At that point, when it became obvious that Judah wasn’t going to do the right thing, Tamar had every right to completely disgrace Judah and his entire household by publicly removing his shoe and spitting in his face. But she didn’t do that. She didn’t want to bring disgrace to the family that she had married into. So she chose to force Judah to do the right thing instead. In spite of having been disgraced herself, she chose to honor Judah and his household by slyly tricking Judah into sleeping with her, at just the right time of month no less, in order to ensure a child through Judah’s family line. She was not only standing up for herself and her own rights as a widow, she was standing up for the honor and the future of their family! Tamar stood up for those little seeds within herself that hadn’t had a chance to grow yet. She stood up for those little seeds of generations to come; Perez and Zerah – the twins she bore from Judah, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon, Boaz – the husband of Ruth, Obed, Jesse – the father of David, King David – the father of the second Tamar and Solomon, Rehoboam, Abihah, Asaph, Jehoshaphat, Joram, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manassah, Amos, Josiah, Jechoniah, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Zadok, Achim, Eliud, Eleazar, Matthen, Jacob, Joseph, and even King Jesus. Each and every one of those ever-so-important people were within her womb, waiting to have a chance to live, to sprout and grow, to make an impact on this world and if she hadn’t stood up for them, they never would have been.

When we plant seeds of faith and hope and love into our children we are doing so much more than simply tending to the sapling sprouting in our little home garden. We are tending the mighty tree that will bear the seed containing fruit of all the generations to come! And who knows what those little generational seeds will do? We have the opportunity to not only carry on (or sever) the generational cycles that have been passed down to us, but also the opportunity to pass them down to the next generation. I have a magnet on my refrigerator that says, “You can count the number seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed.” And it is so very true! God knows each and every apple that will come from your seed, He knows the fruit that each precious seed will bear, and plant and grow in its life and time and in all the lifetimes to come. God knows the plans that He has for you… and your generations to come. He knows the plans and He knows the promises and He will be faithful to fulfill each and every one of them just like He did with the Israelites and their own Promised Land.

When the LORD promised Abraham a son to inherit his legacy AND the land they were standing in; each and every one of those numbered starry-eyed children was in Abraham’s loins at the time the promise was given and sealed with blood. Beloved… when God made these promises… He wasn’t making them to Abraham alone, He was making them to us all. For, as believers, we are all Abraham’s seed. Oh my friend! WHEN, not if, not maybe, but WHEN you come into the land the LORD your God has promised you as an inheritance, take possession of it, live deeply rooted in it, love being in it, rejoice because of it! Because it’s YOURS, all yours, live in the abundant life that Jesus’ blood sealed for YOU. Like turning your nose up at a dinner your mother slaved over just for you, it would insult Jesus if you didn’t dig in and enjoy the freedoms and the pleasantries of this life full-well knowing that they are but a shadow of what is still yet to come. The future Promised Land of Heaven. May you live abundantly today under the promise of Him who is does exceedingly abundantly above all that you can hope or imagine! Amen!

Pray: Morning Prayer

Today’s Reading: Deuteronomy 19:11-22:30

My word for the day: “Mixed”

So I’ve been feeling the Spirit’s leading for the last few weeks that I should start a “word for the day” where I share with you the word, or words, in the reading or from the reading that really popped out to me at the time I read. But the time wasn’t right until now. Yay1 J God has been talking to me a lot about teaching you more about meditation. I mention it often but I haven’t really ever taken the time to actually tell you about it. Many times when we hear the word meditate we first think of a monk on some mountain top cross-legged, closed eyed, oooooohhhhhmmmmmm-ing along to himself. And yes, that is one way of meditation, but truly meditation can also be as simple as laying down on your bed, or the floor, breathing deeply to calm and relax your mind and body and talking with God about what you’ve just read. I’ve mentioned a lot lately God’s responses to the things that I have asked Him about that day’s reading, this is often when I receive those responses from Him – while meditating.

Today, one of the many things in the reading that popped out to me was the section in chapter twenty-two about not mixing things.

*Verse 5: A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.

* verse 9: You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of see, lest the whole yield be forfeited, the crop that you have sown and the yield of the vineyard.

* verse 10: You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.

* verse 11: You shall not wear cloth of wool and linen mixed together.

I was perplexed by all these things that were not allowed to mix and in my margin I wrote “don’t mix: keep things separate… but not any more, now He tells us to mix!” When I wrote the word “separate” God caused me to think of Him telling the Israelites to be separate from the other nations, set apart. They were not allowed to socialize with them, marry them, nothing. They were then much like the Amish are now, not that they aren’t polite when outsiders meet or talk to them, but they live in a completely separate world from us. This is what God called the Israelites to do in that time.

And then there was Jesus. (Oh isn’t His name just like a song?!? I love it!) When Jesus came, all those people that the Hebrews weren’t supposed to socialize with, the lepers, the prostitutes, the Samaritans, all of them flocked to Jesus… and He welcomed them. Before He was crucified a gentile (non-Jewish) woman came and begged Him to heal her daughter to which Jesus replied that His miracles were for the Jews, but when she persisted saying that even the dogs get to eat the crumbs from the master’s table He caved and healed her daughter in that moment. So even at that time, before the resurrection, Jesus was reluctant to offer Himself to those outside the Jewish faith and nation. But AFTER the resurrection is a completely different story! After the resurrection Jesus appointed Paul to minister mainly to the gentile nations and people! Although the message of salvation through Jesus was first intended for the Jews, it certainly was not intended for them ONLY.

So with all this in mind, when I finished reading today’s section I lay face-down on my bed, my Bible nestled by my head and I questioned Him “Lord, for what purpose did You mix these things together?” And I just love what His response was! “To make something new!” He then proceeded to show me what He meant. He beckoned my ear to hear my husband in the kitchen mixing up his recovery drink (the protein shake he drinks after he works out). I could hear him pouring the milk, tapping the pink powder out of the measuring cup, snapping on the lid and then shaking the contents vigorously. The milk in the shake is palatable by itself but you would never ordinarily eat the protein shake power on its own yet when mixed together they created something completely different and new and perfectly lovely! The milk on its own is wonderful, pure, good for your body. Then there’s the powder, it has all the elements in it to be something good and healthy for our bodies, but on its own it just doesn’t work. However when it is mixed with milk or water it is just the thing your body needs to help it grow strong and healthier than it would if you had just drank water or milk. Separate they are both good, together they are better.

As I am writing this God is really opening my eyes to the next level of this lesson, I love how He does that! God, through His word, is that milk and we are the powder. His word, the Bible, is pure it’s good, it’s everything that we need… except it does us no good if it sits on a shelf and gathers dust from lack of use. Then there’s us, the dusty powder; when sitting in the can on the shelf we too are quite useless. We have the potential to be something great and do much good, but without the word of God within us, the Living Water flowing through our veins we simply aren’t that palatable. Ahhhh! But together, mmmmmm, now that’s a tasty new drink! Together with God through a daily walk with Him we become something altogether different, someone that has the ability to bring health and healing to another dusty powder person. We have the ability to show them the milk! We have the ability to show them the stream of Living water that we go to everyday to fill up our own cups to keep ourselves from becoming dusty powder once again. We have the ability to open our mouths and spew out the water of His work to hydrate a thirsty soul. We have that ability through Christ.

You know, it’s good to be “mixed up” with God! Don’t you think so?