What is home?
I am not sure I really understand this yet. But I think, I know, that I am beginning to have a home.
I've never had a home before. Not like this. Oh, I've had wonderful houses that I have lived in. The house I live in now was positively a gift from Yahweh. And the windows are so. awesome. (Windows!!) But a house is not a home.
Home is a safe place. Home is a place where you can rest and not fear what might try to come against you. I've always thought that home is a place that you can be yourself, but then I didn't really know myself, so I couldn't have been me if I tried.
There is so much more to home than this, however. Because home is where the Father is. In our society, most people don't have a home anymore because it takes a father to make a home. And while many of the Earthly fathers of this nation haven't been able to create homes for their families, a home is available for everyone who receives Yahweh as their Father.
There's always been this part of me that feels just a little bit lonely, a little bit left out. Our ecclesia really puts an emphasis on family, for that is Yahweh's order and government. His original idea was for families to care for each other and to rule over metrons--areas of responsibility--together. The original word for "nation" actually is "birth," and the original countries were based entirely on families who grew and spread out to rule vast areas of land.
Yet, what about those of us whose families are not ready to take their places in the Kingdom order? There are some of us who don't have earthly fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, etc. who are willing to line up with Yahweh and help us steward these metrons that we have been given. Sometimes, this can be hard because, while there are pastors and people who are very kind and willing to help where they can, there is no substitute for family. There is always the inevitable time when you have to return to an empty house and, alone, prepare for the responsibilities that tomorrow will bring you.
But Yahweh does not leave us as orphans. He promised to come to us and to give us the spirit of adoption. He promised, in other words, to be our Father. And in our Father are many homes. There Yahshua prepared a place for us, and we came to the Father through Him.
This home is not a physical location. It is not in one place at one time, but it is in Yahweh. He is my home, and He is my Father. In Him I am safe. In Him I can rest and not fear what might try to come against me. In Him I can be myself, for He has shown me myself and He has made me into myself. He helps me reign in my metron, for He gives me the grace to do so. And it is here that I have found my home.
Though I do not understand it, for I've never seen a home like this before. I have friends whose dreams are to travel the world and visit foreign places, and while I find travel fun and exciting, I have always dreamed of having a home. I've tried to push aside the loneliness, to save the things they say about family for the "one day" and the "not yet" when Yahweh will do something new in the far distant future.
Yet here I am, beginning to see what "home" is, realizing the dream far earlier than I ever thought possible, a dream that part of me thought would never really be possible. But with my God all things are possible. Yahweh is so amazing.
Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. ~John 14:1-3
Sunday, September 27, 2015
Sunday, September 13, 2015
The Beauty of Redemption
We've all heard that regretting the past is a waste of time. We can't go back and change it. Yahweh's forgiven us for it, so why can't we forgive ourselves? It's only hampering our future to focus to intently on the past.
None of this is wrong, but I find there is another reason for not regretting the past that is not talked about nearly so often. Redemption.
Redemption is when Yahweh takes something that was broken and makes it whole again, when He makes sure that something negative becomes positive, when He takes what was never meant to be and turns it into the very thing that He had envisioned from before the foundations of the world. Redemption is beautiful. Redemption is amazing. Redemption is glorious.
Think about the state of the world right now. Wars and poverty, hatred and death. All throughout history we've had genocides, murders, depravity. The worst of the worst that can happen when man tells Yahweh that He doesn't get to be a part of the very world He created. If you're like me, you can see the degradation that society is existing in right now. The laws the United States has recently enacted, the militant anti-Christ that is working in this world. It all points to destruction and that can easily lead to despair.
But think of all that which seems to be utterly insane, a one-way ticket to Hell in a hand basket. Then think about redemption. The realization that Yahweh can actually fix all of that, that He can take the people who are enacting these horrors and perpetuating these evils and change their hearts and make them do the very opposite of what they've done all their lives. The only requirement for Him to be able to do that is that a man let Him into His heart and give Him free access to work His redemptive power therein.
I think about Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus, who was part of the biggest detriment to the growth of Yahweh's Kingdom that existed in his time. He actively persecuted and killed Christians, even holding the cloaks of the men who martyred Stephen. He felt no remorse for this; he thought he was doing the right thing. He would have continued to persecute and murder Christians for the rest of his life believing that this is what he was supposed to be doing. Yet, when He met Yahshua on the road to Damascus, He was changed from the inside out. Allowing Yahshua to work in Him and through Him, He became one of the greatest assets to the growth of Yahweh's Kingdom. He wrote 2/3 of the New Testaments, started countless ecclesiae in the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Asia Minor, and was responsible for the spread of the Gospel to the Gentiles.
Redemption.
It is utterly amazing that Yahweh was able to change such a man so thoroughly, use his life so completely that we, today, are still benefiting from his faith and the things he did through his faith.
I look back at my own life. It is hard to describe the lack of freedom I once walked in. I was clinically depressed from the age of 10. I still remember the summer I first began to take Prozac. I was just about to start 5th grade and I was so embarrassed that there was something wrong with me that I didn't want anyone to know I had to take that daily pill. Over time, I began to wallow in the sadness, to believe that nobody would or ever could love me. I gained so much weight that I topped out at 387 pounds. I tried to hide away from the world because I was afraid of it. All it ever did was hurt me, and I was sure all I could ever do to it was be a detriment. I did not look too far into the future because I was afraid that what I would find there, all I could ever be, was more of what I was then living in. A psychiatrist told me that I could expect a major depressive episode at least once a year for the rest of my life. Why, then, would I want to continue living? I hated myself, I hated my life, and I knew vaguely that there was a God out there who had sent His Son to die for me, but I did not have the relationship with Him that I do now.
Yet, He was there for me all along, and the life I live now is exceedingly, abundantly beyond anything I could have ever imagined or dreamed. I was healed of depression, I've lost 200 pounds, I have a job where I am helping people and doing good in the world. I have friends that love me and whom I trust. And what's even more amazing? When I look to the future, I only see more joy, more beauty. One day I shall have a husband and children. One day I shall change the world. And what I see is not even all that will be because even that shall be exceeded, more abundant.
It would be easy for me to regret the past. Sometimes, I wish I'd had the freedom I do now when I was in college or high school. My life would've been a lot different. I would've been one of those teenagers with friends who go hang out at the movies at night and have a curfew and parents who are waiting for you when you get home. But I didn't have that then. Instead, I have what I have now, and I get to hang out late at night with friends all the time.
Because Yahweh has returned to me everything I'd lost.
And so I am grateful for the past. For the horrible times and the times when I was just holding on to life by a thread. I could easily have died, for suicide presented itself as an option to me many times over the years. But I did not because of Yahweh. Because I knew my life was and is His and I did not want to steal it from Him as the last thing I did on this earth.
Then look where He has taken me. The contrast between what was and what is is unfathomable to those who haven't seen it, haven't lived it, themselves. Yet, I believe that the contrast gives Yahweh a greater glory and I hope it will show others, as Paul's life did, that Yahweh can truly do what is impossible in any situation so long as He is given access. Trust Him. He is good.
Because redemption is beautiful. How can any being take all that is horrible and ugly in this world and make it perfect again? But that is what Yahweh will do, what He did when Yahshua died on the cross and said, "It is finished." When He said "finished," He didn't just mean done. He meant perfected. In other words, He said, "It is perfect again." Perfect again... Redeemed.
Yahweh... He created an infinite universe that was utterly perfect. He put every intersection of space and time, of people and places, of hearts and beings and feelings, everything that ever was, is, or could ever be He mapped out and made to flow perfectly. The unrolling of creation was the perfect symphony of harmonic sounds, the perfect blend of colors on a canvas, the perfect combination of words in a poem. And then it was broken, slashed into an infinite number of minute pieces that we as part of creation kept trying to fix but could never have fixed because the pieces were so small that we couldn't even see them. Yet He fixed it. He put it all back together again. He redeemed creation.
Redemption is beautiful. So the past is beautiful. It is not something to regret, it is something to provide a contrast to what we are living in the present so that we can be more grateful to Yahweh having known lack than we would have been if we'd only ever lived in plenty. So that Yahweh can be seen as more glorious for having redeemed what was broken. Because I don't think I would know how perfect my life really is right now if I had not known the oppression that I lived in before.
The horrible and wonderful process of redemption allows me to know Yahweh. He is worth it. So I am so grateful for the process.
None of this is wrong, but I find there is another reason for not regretting the past that is not talked about nearly so often. Redemption.
Redemption is when Yahweh takes something that was broken and makes it whole again, when He makes sure that something negative becomes positive, when He takes what was never meant to be and turns it into the very thing that He had envisioned from before the foundations of the world. Redemption is beautiful. Redemption is amazing. Redemption is glorious.
Think about the state of the world right now. Wars and poverty, hatred and death. All throughout history we've had genocides, murders, depravity. The worst of the worst that can happen when man tells Yahweh that He doesn't get to be a part of the very world He created. If you're like me, you can see the degradation that society is existing in right now. The laws the United States has recently enacted, the militant anti-Christ that is working in this world. It all points to destruction and that can easily lead to despair.
But think of all that which seems to be utterly insane, a one-way ticket to Hell in a hand basket. Then think about redemption. The realization that Yahweh can actually fix all of that, that He can take the people who are enacting these horrors and perpetuating these evils and change their hearts and make them do the very opposite of what they've done all their lives. The only requirement for Him to be able to do that is that a man let Him into His heart and give Him free access to work His redemptive power therein.
I think about Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus, who was part of the biggest detriment to the growth of Yahweh's Kingdom that existed in his time. He actively persecuted and killed Christians, even holding the cloaks of the men who martyred Stephen. He felt no remorse for this; he thought he was doing the right thing. He would have continued to persecute and murder Christians for the rest of his life believing that this is what he was supposed to be doing. Yet, when He met Yahshua on the road to Damascus, He was changed from the inside out. Allowing Yahshua to work in Him and through Him, He became one of the greatest assets to the growth of Yahweh's Kingdom. He wrote 2/3 of the New Testaments, started countless ecclesiae in the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Asia Minor, and was responsible for the spread of the Gospel to the Gentiles.
Redemption.
It is utterly amazing that Yahweh was able to change such a man so thoroughly, use his life so completely that we, today, are still benefiting from his faith and the things he did through his faith.
I look back at my own life. It is hard to describe the lack of freedom I once walked in. I was clinically depressed from the age of 10. I still remember the summer I first began to take Prozac. I was just about to start 5th grade and I was so embarrassed that there was something wrong with me that I didn't want anyone to know I had to take that daily pill. Over time, I began to wallow in the sadness, to believe that nobody would or ever could love me. I gained so much weight that I topped out at 387 pounds. I tried to hide away from the world because I was afraid of it. All it ever did was hurt me, and I was sure all I could ever do to it was be a detriment. I did not look too far into the future because I was afraid that what I would find there, all I could ever be, was more of what I was then living in. A psychiatrist told me that I could expect a major depressive episode at least once a year for the rest of my life. Why, then, would I want to continue living? I hated myself, I hated my life, and I knew vaguely that there was a God out there who had sent His Son to die for me, but I did not have the relationship with Him that I do now.
Yet, He was there for me all along, and the life I live now is exceedingly, abundantly beyond anything I could have ever imagined or dreamed. I was healed of depression, I've lost 200 pounds, I have a job where I am helping people and doing good in the world. I have friends that love me and whom I trust. And what's even more amazing? When I look to the future, I only see more joy, more beauty. One day I shall have a husband and children. One day I shall change the world. And what I see is not even all that will be because even that shall be exceeded, more abundant.
It would be easy for me to regret the past. Sometimes, I wish I'd had the freedom I do now when I was in college or high school. My life would've been a lot different. I would've been one of those teenagers with friends who go hang out at the movies at night and have a curfew and parents who are waiting for you when you get home. But I didn't have that then. Instead, I have what I have now, and I get to hang out late at night with friends all the time.
Because Yahweh has returned to me everything I'd lost.
And so I am grateful for the past. For the horrible times and the times when I was just holding on to life by a thread. I could easily have died, for suicide presented itself as an option to me many times over the years. But I did not because of Yahweh. Because I knew my life was and is His and I did not want to steal it from Him as the last thing I did on this earth.
Then look where He has taken me. The contrast between what was and what is is unfathomable to those who haven't seen it, haven't lived it, themselves. Yet, I believe that the contrast gives Yahweh a greater glory and I hope it will show others, as Paul's life did, that Yahweh can truly do what is impossible in any situation so long as He is given access. Trust Him. He is good.
Because redemption is beautiful. How can any being take all that is horrible and ugly in this world and make it perfect again? But that is what Yahweh will do, what He did when Yahshua died on the cross and said, "It is finished." When He said "finished," He didn't just mean done. He meant perfected. In other words, He said, "It is perfect again." Perfect again... Redeemed.
Yahweh... He created an infinite universe that was utterly perfect. He put every intersection of space and time, of people and places, of hearts and beings and feelings, everything that ever was, is, or could ever be He mapped out and made to flow perfectly. The unrolling of creation was the perfect symphony of harmonic sounds, the perfect blend of colors on a canvas, the perfect combination of words in a poem. And then it was broken, slashed into an infinite number of minute pieces that we as part of creation kept trying to fix but could never have fixed because the pieces were so small that we couldn't even see them. Yet He fixed it. He put it all back together again. He redeemed creation.
Redemption is beautiful. So the past is beautiful. It is not something to regret, it is something to provide a contrast to what we are living in the present so that we can be more grateful to Yahweh having known lack than we would have been if we'd only ever lived in plenty. So that Yahweh can be seen as more glorious for having redeemed what was broken. Because I don't think I would know how perfect my life really is right now if I had not known the oppression that I lived in before.
The horrible and wonderful process of redemption allows me to know Yahweh. He is worth it. So I am so grateful for the process.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)