Buy the truth and sell it not

"But me, I'm not giving up. I'm sticking around to see what God will do. I'm waiting for God to make things right. I'm counting on God to listen to me. Don't, enemy, crow over me. I'm down, but I'm not out. I'm sitting in the dark right now, but God is my light." (Micah 7:7-8, The Message Bible)

"To hear You say "Wipe your tears, child. What you now see is not the sunset. Lift up your heart and lift up your head. Though there's no music, now we start to dance." (Bat Melech, "Starting over")

What a week! You know, when you start to tell God all these amazing things and then He tests them to see whether they're real or just words in the wind... one of those weeks. I feel like I had to fight not just on one front but on several, and the sad part is that I am only one. How does one function when you don't feel anymore what you believe but you know its the truth so you have to carry on believing, when everyone seems to want a piece of you, but everything inside screams "Leave me alone, I don't care about these things", you drag yourself along feeling exhausted and praying for the weekend to come. And to top them all, what you love is attacked and tarnished all over the world.

You tell yourself "Gam zeh yavoor" (This too shall pass) and go to the one thing from God that you can touch, the one thing that is still here after thousands of years- The Bible. Something like: "Adonai, this is what my heart and my mind say and this is what the whole world says. What are You saying?"

When my grandfather passed away, I was at the beginning of my walk with God and it was a serious blow for me, because he brought me up. But as always, God sent someone to guide me. My brother-in-law, Ian, told me one day when I was moaning about "Why is God doing this to me?": "You look into your heart, Emma, and whatever is left standing in a time of crisis, that's actually what you truly know about God. Everything else, is just beautiful theory." I discovered that day, that even though I was walking with God for two years, there was just one thing standing in me "Never leave you nor forsake you...though the mountains may shake and the hills be removed." (Hebrews 13:5b, Isaiah 54:10) I grabbed that truth like a saving rope, though I did not feel God around, and I got out of the pit. Later on, I felt peace and warmth and love and security and I knew He was near.

"Buy the truth and do not sell it" (Proverbs 23:23a)

One of my favourite verses in the Bible, because it blesses my "straight to the point" Romanian soul. What does it mean to buy the truth? How do you buy it?

I know many will perhaps disagree with me on this, but I strongly believe the most precious currency us, humans have is time. Is not hard to understand that. All you have to do is look at a rich famous man slowly dying. Time is the one thing he cannot have and cannot buy.
You buy truth by investing time. Seek, dig and ask because usually truth is not lying on the surface and you need to look deeper for it. Clear example is what happened in the press these days. I mean their "truth" was so nicely wrapped and there for you, that all you had to do was grab and swallow. Then three days later you find yourself having a conversation with someone and agree on how Jews are terrorists and killers, completly forgetting, as a Christian, that a Jew saved you from a fate far worse than you can now begin to comprehend.

Truth is not easy to find, you have to seek for it. And once you find it, you have to hold on tight because things will come along to challenge the truth. Someone asked me at work: "Emma, how do you know your truth is The One?" I could have sounded all spiritual and witty and tell that person, "Well, I just spoke with Him this morning.", but I am not necessarily here to be witty. I am here to be a witness. I know how my life was before I met the truth and I know how I'm changed. I know there is no human explanation to the peace and love and warmth that comes over me in the hardest circumstances. I know I used to be so hopeless and lost and afraid. And now I am not. I told the person at work: "I believe, because of what happened to me and I know which way to go, because of This Book, which spoke about everything that is going on in me right now, thousands of years ago. It's up to you, to find what I have or not. It is not my business to try to convince you."

I decided nine years ago to believe The Bible to be true and to trust it with my life. One preacher once said: "I bet my life on this Book and if this Book goes down, I will go down with it". Make a decision and stick to it.
"This is madness", some might say. Perhaps for you it might sound that way. Stephen Fry, a famous British Atheist, whom I admire very much because of the way his mind works and the questions he asks, was trying to explain in an interview why he considers it a responsibility to presume there is no afterlife and therefore acquire all the knowledge and experience here. He says in the same interview "It may be that there is an afterlife, and I'll look incredibly stupid." He made me smile. Not that I will ever dare to compare myself with him, because he has a brilliant mind and wrote several books, but I think Stephen Fry and I are part of the same group- we are seekers. Is just that he chose to bet his life on this world and I chose to bet mine on the other.

This world might challenge me everyday in what I believe. Things might happen to me that shout at me all the time: "Where is your God, Emma? Aren't you suppose to be successful if you follow Him?" Define success. Because success as I see it, has got nothing to do with fame and money. If it would be so, you would not see the majority of famous rich people trying to fill some void with everything they can grab and money can buy, yet still end up in rehab clinics or worst, killing themselves. If the God of Israel said: "I am the Lord. Those who trust in me will never be put to shame.” (Isaiah 49:23b) then I believe Him and I refuse to give up on what I believe just because it doesn't look that way all the time. It's my choice and I'll account for it at the end. It's not a phase and it's not an idea I'm enjoying at the moment. I've been tested for nine years and I still believe. This is my journey, and along the way I discovered that if I stick around long enough, when He comes to me, everything makes sense.

Shabbat Shalom.

Emanuela