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What boat do you find yourself and your friends in or building at this time of your life? Have you been pounding away with the hammer and mixing pitch for what seems to be 100 years now?
The place where YHWH places us and then asks us to do His work and His will is only finished when He says so and is only transitioned when He deems. The majority of us are walking in a daze, crying out "Woe is me, for I am undone." Yet, all the while, we have no clue as to what real suffering is, or have travailed very little in the garden for Him, let alone with Him. What grieves us is the inconvenience of our lives being put on hold or taking a detour for the will of God to prevail.
If we are to really look around, there are the necessities that can keep us afloat until the season is upon us. For Noah, YHWH did not chase him through the fiery trials of Job to get the result. Adonai knew Noah and knew what Noah could handle and what the outcome would look like. He gave Noah his family to help and comfort, He gave the animals to cry out His name and to remind Noah and the family what was important.
Where is the flood in your life today? Is it already so high that you are drifting away from the answers or is God sending you somewhere in the boat that He had you built during the times of trials and difficulties? To be sure, we are all building a boat, even though God has His covenant with us, that He will not flood the entire earth again, to destroy it. Our boat is either shelter from the hostile world, friends, family, work or school. But, is it a boat that God sanctioned you to build?
Our sole purpose on earth is to give the Creator glory and to spend time with Him. In doing so, we are light to those who become talmudim and begin to learn how to reciplicate that same glory back to the Creator once again. The hammering being heard in the camps of the righteous are, many times, the noisy gongs and clanging cymbals of humanity fighting against God in the name of God. The common good and unity of Heart and Spirit that we read in scriptures about, is to reveal Himself to us and not to divide us.
I hear talk of division into clans and tribes and that is all well and good, but the truth is, in the wilderness and in our future tribulation that is the redemption from our Egypt, the children of Israel dwelt together, worked together and WORSHIPPED together. Yes, they were divided into camps where they slept, where they has social family outlets, but we are foolish to thing that they never crossed into other tribes encampments and that they never saw one another at the alter. Their boat did not consist of us four and no more.
The same is true in our day. We must learn and be disciplined into getting along and loving each other, and reproving each other in love and accepting reproof and listening and crying and laughing and working....with each other. To thing that our Holy God is going to zap us into shape ready for His kingdom or that He will suddenly bring us into the land of Israel looking like a bunch of inner city gangs is foolishness. The life lessons we persevere through now is the strengthening and training we must endure for the King we serve. This is the boat we are building together. The one new man that is raised up in the likeness of His Son.
So the boats we are making, they are merely life vests. And to our surprise, while we are being supplied with all the materials we need for a fast escape, to keep using them will ultimately mean that God will start replacing some with concrete instead of foam. We could be using, even now, chain and not rope. Mud and not pitch.
Our patience level is so infantile compared to YHWH's. He is so loving and caring for us...He calls us Favor and Union, yet cuts us to small pieces so that He will heal those that are called and chosen. And even if the boat looks finished to us, remember, there is a flood yet to come. And that is where it will take more faith. The endurance to live together inside the camp, inside the boat, will take righteousness that we have not seen as of yet.
So, what is your boat? Where is the faith directed for that coming time? For some the time is very soon to be used in the ways that God has been maturing, and for others, it is still off in the distance. Each of us should be encouraging the other for the good works at hand and to fight the good fight of Faith so that endurance is assured.
I love you all and have missed you in the past weeks. This boat has had holes and seemed to be sinking many times in the past year. Many of us have pounded new holes where we thought we were making repairs and patching up old holes. Many of us have jumped ship into the sand and into hillsides. Some of us are on the stern shouting directions and trying to navigate waters that don't even exist. None of us are perfect, we all bare the marks of hammer hits and saw wounds, of being thrown overboard and for bailing out a bit too early. Some have concluded that there is a boat out there that needs their help and work....that's O.K. There are other works that need laborers, craftsmen and even new works that God is raising up. We must pray for salvation for all those around us and hope that we are part of the remnant that Yeshua gathers to Himself in the time of darkness.
The days were once dark when we had a Savior come to Earth. He passed through many waters and many knew Him to be the vessel of refuge, yet others hammered into place the work of the flesh and placed upon Him the christening of death. Yet, He is the boat we must enter into. His is the only boat that will save and stay afloat in days ahead. So, what boat are you building? |
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