My God given right

“I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you that I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curses; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19)

“Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry” (Psalm 34:12-15 and Peter also quoted it in 1Peter 3:10-12)

I had to do some soul searching the last two days, and in a specific area of my life I discovered deep at the bottom there was fear. This fear motivated every decision, thought, action, attitude in that specific are of my life.

If in anything I do, my foundation is not God, there’s no point for me to carry on building, because it will either all crumble to the ground here, or it will be burnt under His eyes, when I get to finally see Him. (1 Corinthians 3:11-15)

I am an eternal creature. My body dies but I- the sould never will. So why would I want to spend my days building something that has not got an eternal foundation. Do I take anything with me from here which is not eternal?

God Gave us free will, this desire to be free to choose. If anyone would tell us at any point that we no longer have it, we would fight to keep it, because we understand and we know that this is a God given right- a gift. God loves our free will, and we bring joy to His heart when we use it to choose good, because He knows we can always opt not to do that.

He wants us to seek His Face, to seek His guidance in all the aspects of our lives, to put His Word in our hearts and get to know Him, but there comes a day when He wants us to use all these “tools” and choose, make a decision. If we sit there and wait for Him to choose for us, why did He even give us free will? Do we need it?

Philip Yancey talks about the difference between approaching God in a childish or a childlike manner. By childish we understand someone who can’t tie his own shoe laces, whom can’t be trusted with any kind of responsibility. Childlike, is what Yeshua meant when He told us that we have to be like children in order to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven- full of trust.

If all I do is wait for God to make decisions in my place, I personally think is a way of avoiding the responsibility of my own choice. If I say God took me to a certain place and I don’t like it there, then I can blame God for it, because after all He’s the one who brought me there, all I’ve done was follow, right? But if I am the one who chooses, then I have only me to blame and that’s hard to carry. “Yeah, but if I am the one who chooses then where do I get to see His grace, His mercy, His guidance, where do I get to use my trust in Him?”

Lets say I have to make a decision about something. I walk with God everyday, I think I know His character (a little bit at least), I read His Word, I pray, I fast and I seek His will for that specific situation. The time comes for me to give an answer/ make a decision and I still can’t say 100% I know what I’m suppose to do. I get to use my faith and prove my trust in God, when I take the step and I believe He will bless my step. That very moment is when, even though I am a bit nervous, I feel peace and trust, because I know that not even for a second do I step alone. I believe He loves me enough to sustain me every day of my life. And if the step I happened to take proves not to be the best one, it’s all part of the lesson called life, and I have within my grasp His mercy and His grace which can turn any bad thing for good.

Many times I will choose well and the result will not be good for me. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t choose good, it just means that I live in a world a bit alien to the things of God, which most of the time stands against the things I stand for. Therefore trouble is part of the journey, as Yeshua already warned us.

I think there are two ways a human can relate to God- as a child or as an adult. There seem to be three phases in the human life- childhood, adulthood and parenthood. We will never be God’s “parents”- so we only have two options left. My friend, Tina, sent me a song yesterday. The lyrics were “Dancing with my Father God in fields of grace.” I love that thought, because this is something I could never do with my earthly father. I feel many times I’m relating to God as a child and I absolutely cherish that feeling of comfort, safety- like nothing in this universe can touch me- pure joy…but I want more than that. I want more than feelings. I want God to speak to me. To be able to tell me anything He wishes, because I will not turn my back and I will not run away or rebel. In short, I want God to be able to trust me not to take off whenever things are hard, because I don’t like it. I would love to be an adult in God with the joy of a child. I want to use this free will that He gave me and choose good, choose to bless, seek peace and chase it. And at the end when I’ll stand before Him and He will ask me “What have you done with your life, Emma?” to be able to tell Him. “I waisted a lot of it, Adonai sheli. I rebelled, I fought You, I fell and I ran away, but a day came along when I began to use all that You’ve given me and I chose good and life For Your Name’s sake.”

I come from a very much Christian background, the sort of Christian background where you just do it, you don’t ask questions. I am very familiar with the doctrine “God must live through me,” and in its true biblical sense, I love this idea. It seems to have its main foundation on apostle Paul’s letter to Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!(Galatians 2:20-21)

All over his letters to the churches he planted, apostle Paul talks about a life which has its roots in God’s Spirit, where I no longer do the things I used to do- “works of the flesh” but instead for the sake of the One who sacrificed everything for me, I choose good, blessing, life- “the works of the Spirit”. He does not tell us we are dead. He actually says ”The life I live in the body, I live by faith”. That implies I am still alive and kicking, not paralysed in one place not doing anything or making any choices.

What has been crucified with Christ? What is it that’s dead? The old Emma- the Emma that lived only for her own desires. Nowhere do I find these verses telling me I no longer exist, they actually tell me I am alive but I don’t live for myself anymore, I live for Yeshua, trusting completely in what He did for me. And I do not live this life trying to impress Him or gain His approval. I simply live everyday for His sake, seeking to choose good rather than evil.

“Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.” (Isaiah 1:16b-17)

We all live and make choices every single day. The difference between me and those who do not believe in God, is that I live and choose out of love for God, they live and choose for their own sake.

A God nearby- A God far away

"Am I only a God nearby," declares the LORD, "and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?" declares the LORD. "Do not I fill heaven and earth?" declares the LORD." (Jeremiah 23:23-24)

"Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God"? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom." (Isaiah 40:27-28)

I had such an amazing week. It felt as if God sat me down after listening to weeks of my moaning and begging and complaining, the same way a parent sits his child down and asks "Ok, lets see why is this such a big deal?" I feel like someone who was out cold and just woke up and remembered her life. I understood this week that sometimes you can tell yourself you're looking for God but instead only look for an way out of your troubles. That if you take your eyes of the Almighty One of Israel and start to look at Him through the perspective of what you can do, it is very easy to end up in a place where your God is about your size and your problems are bigger than you both.

God is personal. What do I mean by that? He is Yeshua taking a body to be close to us and understand what it means for your eyes to grow tired, your back to hurt and your stomach to feel hungry. He is the One who comes and kneels by your side on an old dirty road where you crashed and can't stand up again. He is the One who puts His forehead on yours so that you would know it's not the end and you are not alone. But if I only see Him this way, as a God nearby, sometimes my human mind might forget that at the same time He is El Shaddai (The Almighty One), El Elyon (The Most High God), Yeshua HaMalech (Jesus, The King)
I might forget that I'm on the winning side here. That there's no need for me to win the battle all over again, that I already won it the minute I believe it and start acting as an overcomer. The battle is in my mind and if I believe Him and start acting as such, there is no one in this universe who can reduce me to a victim.
He remains the same, unchanged by my emotions, reactions, circumstances and failures. He knows when to be a God nearby, Yeshua, my friend who joins His palm with mine to give me strength, and when to be a God far away- The Almighty One, whom I can't comprehend with my mind or contain with the palm of my hand. He is The God "who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the heavens with the breadth of his hand" (Isaiah 40:12)
Some days I think my efforts to understand Him are futile when I try to understand the magnitude and awesomeness of His Persona, but then I look at Yeshua and I see once again He wants to be known just as much as I want to know Him.

Something else I realised this week was how silly I am when I try to hide from my God. Why would you want to hide from Him? It's a natural human reaction when you "take a look" at the King. Isaiah, the prophet, thought he will die (Isaiah 6:5) John, the apostle, fell to the ground (Revelation 1:17). I want to hide, because for a split second I understand I should be dead, but for Yeashua's love. I feel so unworthy and inadequate that I would like to disappear, so I hide. But to hide from your God no matter how you feel, is just as silly as a child sitting in the middle of a group under the strong impression nobody can see him just because he covered his eyes.

And in the same way, I can't hide from Him, my cause is not hidden from Him. He has not disregarded my dreams or forgot the desires of my heart. "His understanding no one can fathom". It's not futile to want to understand Him or His character "I have not said to Jacob's descendants "Seek Me in vain" (Isaiah 49:23)
What is futile though, is to try to guess how He is going to work or His timing. It will never be as I imagine. This Monday, I thought it was too late for Him to help us. He proved to me once again that my 12 o'clock is not 12 o'clock for a timeless God. He made that person write a cheque for £250 at least two days before I thought it was too late. He began to help me, before I even started to get scared and panic, just as He promised "And it shall be that before they call I will answer; and while they are yet speaking I will hear. " (Isaiah 65:24)

What a God! And how happy I am to be His:-)

When God takes notice

"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him" (Matthew 7:11)

Today, I had an amazing experience which I want to share with you all, because I want to thank Him publicly for being such a faithful God. Daniel and I had to deal with a bill which we couldn't afford to pay. The bill was £200 and had to leave our account today. We prayed and we hoped for something to happen, but a big part of us was doubting and being worried (as you do). I asked my friend, Tina to pray for us as well and she sent me the verse above by text reminding me of a conversation we had Saturday about how Abba (Hebrew for daddy) is not as our earthly fathers. As kind and good as they might be, they sometimes disappoint us, but Abba never will.
I had a hard day at work because on top of my work I tried not to think about the bill. At noon, Daniel called me to tell me a cheque has arrived through the post for £250 from someone who wanted to thank him for doing a good job on an album.

I feel in awe and ashamed, humbled and loved...I wanted to thank Him somehow. I thought "My words are not good enough. I'll thank you with some of King David's words since you loved his songs so much." But on my way to the Psalms, my eyes fell randomly on Job 19. I decided to read the whole chapter. It's very vivid, it's all human emotion lashing out at God because its afraid, confused and does not understand. You can almost feel Job's despair, hear his groans, see his tears:
"Pity me, pity me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has struck me. Why do you persecute me as God does, and are not satisfied with my flesh? Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! That with an iron stylus and lead they were engraved in the rock forever" Job 19:21-24

When I finished reading these verses, I almost wanted to say "And God granted him his wish!", because thousands of years after Job, I was reading his words in a book. For me the book of Job is like a trial where the prosecution and defense present their cases. In the beginning of the book, you might think Job is the one being judged, that God somehow is playing Job's life in some sort of a dice game. But by the time you finish this book, you realise God was the one being judged. It doesn't matter how many stupid, untrue, unkind things come out of Job's mouth in his suffering and despair, because he asked, God made sure all of Job's words were recorded in a book forever, just because Job wanted this. Is like God didn't even care about His reputation, he granted Job the desire of his heart with the risk of providing ammunition for millions and billions which came after Job and used Job's words against God, to misrepresent Him. In the end God came and defended Job when his friends criticised him and gave Job back far more than what was taken from him: "The LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning" (Job 42:12)

I knew this. What I didn't realise before was the power of a request before God when you refuse to believe he will give up on you. This is what Job declared after he asked for his words to be written in a book: "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!" (Job 19:25-27)

I've learnt today something new about God. First, if He doesn't care about His own reputation when it comes to one of our requests, how much more will He not take care of our needs? And second, what I class as 12th hour might not be 12 by God's clock.

I want to thank Him for being my Abba, my Shepherd who takes care of all my needs. And I want to thank Tina for being my big sister today. You cried with me and at the end of the day you laughed with me, like two soldiers who had a good day on the battlefield. May the Lord God of Israel bless you for your love and reward you as only He knows.

"He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:32)

My colleague, Karen asked me today to ask God to help us win the lottery. I told her I did. She said I should insist (I think Karen is fed up with shopping at Tesco:-)) Karen then said that it would be nice not to have the worry about money anymore. Yeah, it would be nice, but as I told Karen, there are certain things I could never learn if God would hand me the winning lottery ticket (don't worry, Karen, I'll carry on praying). And today's lessons are precious to me. Money can be taken away from me, but I will never forget that on this day I've asked again for my Shepherd to meet my needs and He did.