TASHLIKH & GETTING FREE

Middle Ages synagogue going to the river for a Tashlikh ceremony.

I am writing this on the first of the Ten Days between Rosh Hashana (the feast of trumpets) and Yom Kippur (the day of atonement). The trumpets announce that this is the time set apart by God for self-examination and introspection.  It is a time when each of us should look at our lives to assess where we are with God and with others. This is a time to ask ourselves where we have fallen short of what we really know God wants for us. 

Tashlikh is a Jewish custom of casting your sins away from you, ideally into running water. One person I know wrote all her sins on a stone and threw it into the ocean.  Not having an ocean nearby, it's the intention of the heart that’s at heart here!  It is possible to divest yourself of all that disturbs your peace, with God, with yourself and with others, by repenting of them, giving the whole matter over to God, then casting it far from you and being restored to His peace and His love. 

To Jews without Yeshua, it is the time for each person to examine themselves in order that their names would be written in the Book of Life for another year.  For believers in Yeshua, our names are written in the Lambs Book of Life, not for a year, but forever.  However, while this is not a popular theological position in our day, an examination of Scripture will reveal that only those who continue to walk with the Lord will be saved in the end. It is possible to fall away and not make it to forever with Him.  Yeshua states in The Revelation, “He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels” (Rev. 3:5).  

Terrifying as that is (especially eternally) God provides anytime but also a yearly time to specifically look humbly at ourselves to see if we are truly walking with Him in righteousness. It may take some overcoming of our own flesh and ego and giving up having to be right, but there is a greater issue here than being right in our own minds; it’s being righteous which is being right with God.  

If our faith is in question, since “Messiah Yeshua is the same yesterday, today and forever,” (Hebrews 13:8) and our trust is not the same as it once was, GUESS WHO MOVED?  

Perhaps we have slipped from reading His Word and our thoughts are now far from Kingdom thinking. Possibly we come to realize we have been self-centered which is always prideful (satan's nature, not God's), or selfish, unkind or irresponsible in relationships with others. It may be that we have been self-protective instead of letting God be our protection, and we’ve walled ourselves in to keep from being hurt further.* The trouble with walls keeping hurt out is they also keep love and affection out and you wind up being in there alone. A warning about self-pity: It makes you a victim and victims never overcome. They remain powerless but God really is “our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).  He does go to great lengths to make us “overcomers.” It’s our choice whether to receive it or not. 

 It does mean letting go of all that is not as you would have it be and “casting your anxieties on the Lord for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). That “cares” not only means that your situation matters to Him but that He will take 'care' of the situations as we continue to trust Him to do so. When both parties in a conflict can do that He quickly resolves the pain and conflict. He is the ultimate and most wonderful Peacemaker!  

Forgives as God forgives us. He never brings up past issues!  Once forgiven, fully forgiven. “Love…doesn’t keep a record of wrong doings” (1 Cor. 13:5). Maybe you need to repent of record keeping which always drags along baggage and doesn’t allow the relationship to move forward in freedom and affection.  You may be holding it where you don’t want it to stay by keeping the failures alive between you!  Let it go. Give the forgiveness, accept the forgiveness!! If you can do that with the other person you’re in conflict with, so much the better. If the two of you can come to  God together – Wow, watch and see what He will do!!  

Even if it’s just about your own failing somewhere and doesn’t even include anyone else, ask God’s forgiveness and then forgive yourself.  If we are unhappy with ourselves, we generally know why. Somewhere we are out of touch with God and His love and total forgiveness. His love will always lead us to love ourselves and love others.  Remember the greatest commandment?  Love God and love others as you love yourself.  (See Matt. 22:36-40). That statement is worth a lot of pondering.  There are three individuals involved and how we relate to one is unalterably linked to how we relate to the other two. (Selah.) 

It may be that there are people who have hurt and/or disappointed you, and even angered you. What shall you do about those? Will you continue to let those hurts or disappointments define where your relationships – and even your life  - goes from here? Many do, at great loss. 

Keep in mind that when we are annoyed or hold resentment or anger toward someone else, or even when someone else’s ways really irk us, verbalizing our dislike to them or our (can I use the word) contempt for them really says more about our own hearts than about them.  We may feel better at first for “getting it off our chest” but if we have wounded someone else, our own hearts are not entirely free before Him who never dishonors us!

No matter what sin or failure we may commit, God always speaks to us with honor. Dishonor is not in Him.  Nor should it be in us.  Write it on a rock (or a piece of paper) and cast it where it will be far from you (flush it if you must; it is running water, right?). It may free you where you don’t even know you need to be free if you ask anyone you’ve lashed out at to forgive you and then bless them – like you mean it.  

I could go on. No doubt you could too.  Take these ten days (or any days) to look into yourself and ask God to show you yourself. If you’re afraid to, then you may really need to, in order to get free from all that disturbs your peace and love with Him, yourself or with others – maybe even those you love the most! Don't go on a psychological archaeology dig, but what God shows you or you know is already there, deal with and let it go. 

Bring the honor God always gives us back into your relationships, including for yourself, accepting it from Him and repenting of all that may hinder your peace and start anew.  

May each of our names always remain in the Lamb’s Book of Life forever. Amen.   

* This is not meant to forgive and then stay in an abusive situation. Where there is harm to you or others, you are justified Biblically to find a way out of that situation.  

Lessons From Rehab

Having To Put Life Together Again

The Lord sure does have His unique ways of getting His points across. Several weeks ago I fell, tripping over the wire for the doggie run and landed on the concrete on my patio at 11:30 one night while letting my dog out before going to bed.  Oh the pain. Surely I didn’t break my hip…… did I?  The answer came soon enough. 

Somehow I skootched myself back inside to the front door of my apartment and began calling for help. I had been reduced to being a television commercial, hollering, “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”  Fortunately, after a while, one of my neighbors heard me and came bearing a cell phone so I called my daughter Ellen first who lives around the corner, then realizing there was nothing she could do, I called 911. And thus my adventure began. 

Weeks before the Lord had been telling me I needed to rest. Not just rest in Him, but rest from all the activities I was involved with. I was admittedly exhausted, but how do you stop? So much to do, so many people to be with. I loved what I was doing, and presumed that I was doing it all for God and it all was His will; evidently such was not the case.  My thought was that what I was doing, despite the fact that I was always pushing past fatigue, was all part of serving Him. I then heard Him clearly say, “If you had something wrong with you, you would rest. So rest so you don’t have to have something wrong with you.”  Oh dear. Well, that got my attention.

I knew it was time to obey. I knew I had to take time off, a sabbatical. I talked it over with my pastor who said that when God asks you to rest like that, He often has something else He wants you to do. I cancelled my classes and Shabbat Service. I finished speaking engagements including in NC and settled into the intended rest. Only I didn’t know how to rest. Phone calls came, emails, lunches, dinners, people who wanted to talk and I wanted to talk with. A possible home fellowship start-up came to an abrupt halt as if God had pulled the plug before it even got started. But most of all, I didn’t know how to turn off my brain. I had been going and doing for so long, I couldn’t seem to turn it off.  

One day I said to the Lord, “I need you to show me what you mean by rest. I don’t seem to know how.  My internal motor is still running. What is Your idea of rest, Lord, and how do I get there?”  That night I fell.  I’m inclined to say the Lord stuck out His foot and tripped me in answer to my prayer that afternoon.  You don’t think God does things like that? Didn’t He discipline Israel when they needed it? Didn’t He impose years of not working the Land while in exile when they didn’t keep the Shabbats for 70 years? This wasn’t quite of that magnitude but I was getting the point.  

I later recalled a conversation I had years ago with a woman named Sandy Dodson (now with the Lord) who ministered in the power of the Holy Spirit in a conference for three entire days. I myself was healed of something that had been with me since my teens. I met her in the ladies room on the last day and said to her,, “ You must be exhausted after putting out all that energy for people.” But her response was this:  “God doesn’t use up His people. If you’re exhausted, then you’re ministering in the flesh and not the Spirit and you better find out where.”  Wish I’d remembered that earlier. 

And so began my saga of hip surgery and then rehab. I never knew this kind of pain and incapacitation. I’ve had to learn to walk all over again. But more importantly, the Lord has been teaching me how to walk with Him as I have not before. A restoration of a broken hip begins with realizing you have no ability whatsoever to move or lift that leg even an inch off the bed. It’s as good a dead, only any attempts at moving it is horribly painful so you know it’s not dead, it’s just incapable of doing anything.  It clearly brought to mind, “Without Me you can do nothing.”  

Oh I could do things with my hands, I could talk, I could do anything but what involved my hip. My understanding of what it is to “walk with God” took on new meaning. It starts with utter dependence upon Him, with nothing of ourselves alone that can facilitate truly walking with God. “Enoch walked with God and He was not for God took him”. What was it about Enoch’s walk with God that God ‘raptured’ him away to be with Him?  Many of us are awaiting such an event as “the rapture.”  Since ‘first mentions’ in the bible set the tone of things to come along those same lines, it would seem that for anyone to be “not for God took him” they would need to “walk with God” in a way that significantly sets them apart from those who do not.  

As I began physical therapy, tiny movements at a time, I had to start with learning how to sit up even a little (try eating lying down or on an incline), or how to move my leg just a little (try getting comfortable when you’ve been in the same position for hours). I could give you a list of what I had to learn to accomplish but my goal is to point out how absolutely dependent I was upon the nurses or the PT people for everything. The nurses, bless them, saw to my needs, and the P.T. folks taught me how to sit, walk, stand and move again. These were people who continually cared for those who could give nothing back to them (see photo at left).  I have become so very grateful for even little kindnesses and appreciative of how little it takes to bless or help someone else who may or may not be in need. 

In the meantime, between the pain and the fatigue, I was relegated to where I could do very little for myself. It didn’t take me long to say, “OK, Lord, I get it. Walking with You means resting in you because any effort of my own unless and until I am ready for it, is counter-productive, painful and useless.”  If we look at this from a spiritual point of view, how much energy do we expend that does not produce the intended results.

I once did an extensive study of the cause of God’s favor and disfavor. I was trying to figure out how to stay in His good graces.  It distilled down to two words, the difference between dependence and independence.  Every since I have attempted to live in godly dependence upon Him.  

But it is possible to think you are depending upon Him while doing more than He has been asking you to do. That, my friends, was an autobiographical statement. But I do wonder how much the church is doing that is not what He’s been asking us to do.  How many in ministry are burned out but unable to stop. How many meetings have many of us been attending without quality time with Him alone, or for that matter, neglecting other parts of our lives or family because we’re ‘doing the stuff’.  We’re busy people, most of us. Too busy. Slaves to efficiency and technology, driven by a guilt that doesn’t allow us to just say no. Or am I alone here? 

It has taken me several weeks of rethinking how I’ve been living my life, even “in Him”  to see that many of my activities haven’t produced the Kingdom life either in me or those who have been in my classes. Have we together learned a lot of good Biblical information, and has some of it even been transformational?  Yes, I would say so. But are we the Bride without spot or wrinkle that Yeshua is returning for yet?  I would say not. 

Years ago I heard the Lord say, “The Bride I come for will have eyes for no one and nothing other than Me.” He has a right to that kind of complete adoration, wouldn’t you say?  How distracted are we, though?  Even distracted with what we’re supposedly “doing for Him” including at the expense of being with Him.

When I got here in Rehab and saw my state of dependence in the natural, and then realized it mirrored what my dependence in the spiritual should be upon the Lord, I knew I needed a significant boost in my faith.  Since “Faith comes by hearing” I started listening to Scriptures online, specifically the Psalms. The first thing that happened was that I realized my Bible time wasn’t just about the Lord and me, but others were in there too. If I found something meaningful or a revelation popped out to me, I couldn’t wait to go and share it with or teach it to others.  I saw that my relationship with Yeshua was like a marriage that had too many others in the intimate places.  Part of my coming to rest was giving up the ‘striving’ to share what He showed me with others, but to allow that same insight to be just between me and Him, to be about our relationship, to be what he wanted to share of Himself with me – just me.  Not me and everyone else.  My first and primary ‘call’ is not about what I share with others, but as daughter, as lover, as adoring disciple, even to resting my head on His chest at times as John did. That, of course, applies to each and every one of us. 

I’m sure by now you get the picture of what I’m trying to say.  I have heard stories recently of several people who have also been confronted with finding their efforts for the Lord frustrated or ineffective, or they too, as it happened, were to some degree incapacitated in some way causing them to rethink their own walks with the Lord. There seems to be a pattern here.  If it happens to you, I urge you to heed the call! God is likely to want more of you for Himself than He’s had.          

I am now able to walk, s-l-o-w-l-y, though I must use a cane or a four wheeled walker for now. It is a reminder that I am walking with God – in no hurry. I'm finding new ways to put life back together at His pace. For those of us who look forward to being with Him forever, I have this feeling that we are living in a time when Bridal clothes are being given out. We don’t want to be too busy so that we miss hearing His voice calling us to intimate times with Him, and a life that becomes one in which we have eyes for no one else and nothing else but Him.  It’s something He must do, but giving Him our attention should sure move that along, wouldn’t you think?  In other words, right priorities!  To be His bride is to walk with Him, beside Him, and at His pace.  I hope to see you on the journey.