thinking back

Yesterday I was telling two friends about how I have been feeling like I just get on everyone's nerves. I feel like stopping everything because I really want people to be okay and happy and if I am the problem then I am willing to get out of everyone's way.

We sat and prayed and talked about it. I guess that I feel very sad these days. It is not a crisis of belief or burnout. It is just that with so many people seemingly pissed at me, it is taking its toll. On one hand I am aware that God is using my crazy life. I know that in front of him, I am okay. I don't mean that He looks over my faults it is just that in spite of them He chooses to love me and allow me to stay in His kingdom. For His mercy and grace am I ever thankful.

1 Mos 19:19
Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die:


This verse sums up how I feel about my relationship with God. It feels solid and were it not for the Lord I would have crumbled a long time ago.

I don't want to make people feel badly. I hate the looks on their faces. I hate that fact they so many seem to expect things of me that I cannot give. I don't feel very accepted. I guess this is why I just feel like walking away. The other day, while I was riding the bus to work, I was having a waking daydream.

I dreamed that I woke up and I couldn't understand or speak Swedish. I didn't know anyone. I didn't even know why I was in Sweden. I just wanted to get on with my life. Everyone kept trying to tell me that I belonged here, but I had no recollection of it. It was peaceful and restful but it was not reality.

I have been so blessed by God's boundless grace. He saved me. But with so many people, in my daily walk, I see very little of grace. Every mistake regardless of the size is brought to my attention. The worse part is that it doesn't matter how hard I try, it just gets worse.

At the same time I feel this way I am in the middle of a time where I have been able to speak with lots of people about God. It is amazing how God has opened doors over the past few weeks. I am very hopeful that many people will come to faith in the Messiah. God has been using me to sow seeds of faith.

Sowing is not at all like reaping. Sometimes in order to sow you have to break up the fallow ground. This is a long but necessary process. If it is not done then you don't give the seeds a good start.

Jes 28:24-26
Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? [25] When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and rie in their place? [26] For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.

Reaping is exciting, but not harvest takes place without sowing and tilling. It is much more difficult than I ever imagined it would be. I pray that I will not be envious or ungrateful because I am called to sow. When God called me to ministry in Sweden he told me to train others to evangelize and that I am to work with discipleship. I often forget that part of it.

I want to see the great harvest that the Lord will reap in this country. I long for it. So I must continue to sow and with God's help, people will not be so easily irritated with me.

What I hope is to find the way to reconciliation with my friends. I know that I need help with this. Help me God!

I hope that in the coming months my friends and I will continue to help people to trust the Creator of all life through his son Jesus/Yeshua. It is my desire that we grow in our confidence and dependency upon the Lord. Right now I just want my heart to be lightened, just a bit. And then I got an email about a video from a baptism I had done a year ago.

As I look back and remember the goodness of God, my sorrow is lessened and my joy is increased. This is one of those things that makes all of the tough time worth it all.

peace

quitting things

Yesterday I decided
to quit as a volunteer for Young Life. It is a very difficult decision since like IBS (International Bible Study) YoungLife has been like a family for me. It has been one of the places where I have gained the strength to continue on, when I felt like quitting.

Now I am no longer a part of either of these groups. It feels emptier and lonier but I think it still might be the right thing. I have been feeling like I have never nor will I ever be able to live up to the expectations of what people want me to be, do or act. I hate it. I have such a hard time of going past someone.

when I was a young child I decided to not be like that priest who was so busy going to his meeting and keeping up the formal appearences that he couldn't help the person in front of his face that had a need. But living the way that would make me happiest has a very negative side to it.

It means that things might come up and I might have to reorganize my priorities which usually means coming late. this makes everyone around me unhappy. then they judge me and call me inmmature because of this. I just can't handle it anymore. I want to be able to help with little notice and without having to make such a big deal of it.

For the past 6 months I have been feeling like the only things that matter are meetings and looking the part. I can say that this just sucks the life right out of me. I hate what I am becoming. I don't feel as though I am using what God has given me by spending all of my time in meetings and never building relationships. It is not that meetings and planing are unimportant, but they should not make up the bulk of my time.

But it is not just the meetings but more of the fact that I just feel like people are trying to remake me into the Edward that they would rather hang out with than who I am in reality. I know that I am not perfect and this is definitely not an attempt to make myself out to be a victim. I have chosen my lifestyle and my way of dealing with thing and while it may cause everyone around me to dislike me, it is a result of my free decisions. I just want to be me. I would rather loose friends and never again work with the things I love than to ever let people, expectations, roles and positions to force me into a mold that is not me.

I hate the loniness but it is better than feeling judged all of the time. So now I have decided to go it alone as much as possible. I have been backing away for some months now. I'm not as involved as I want to be nor do I hangout as much as I would like to. But it seems to be working. Over the past 6 weeks people have started complaining less. So it seems that I will have to keep going on this path.

When I first became a priest I foolishly thought that I would be able to be around others and build relationships. Now I see that in order to do my job I have to have this distance between myself and others. I have had it very rough this term and yet I have not shared so much of it with others like I would have before. I bear it before God and ask Him to help me.

It might not be what I thought it was going to be, but it may be what is necessary. I wish that I could have continued with YoungLife and IBS, right now things are emptier. I fill my days with papperwork and administration. I do have more time to pray for others and that gives me comfort. I like bringing things to God and then learning from seeing how He answers. It may sound all bad but it is not. I have more freedom to help and that is more important to me than being a part of something.

I just hope that in the long run, I am being lead by the Sprit of God. If not then all this is in vain. As I open my ears to hear God's voice I hope that he crushes the selfish resistance of my heart so that I will live for him, with or without a group.

The only surprising thing is how everyone has taken my quitting with such ease and okay. Maybe I wasn't doing as good a job as I thought? It's not important, just me thinking out loud.

It is sunny today. When I look through a window it looks like it is time for shorts. As I step through the door to enjoy the strong spring sun, the wind blows as a chilling gust and I know am then made aware of the difference between how something looks and how something really is. This is an important lesson for me to learn by.

peace

more about tzara' at

Today I am wondering about the purity of the heart. if the the pure in heart are going to see God then the impure will not. There is a possibility to be ritually pure and still be defiled.

Yeshua talked about how one's heart is not made impure by having contact with ceremonially unclean things. it is not external to the heart.

in Genesis 6:5 and 8:21 God looks upon humanity and declares that that every thought of our hearts are, from our childhood, always evil, which is repeated by Yeshua in Matthew 5:16-20. Yeshua says that eating with unclean hands does not make us unclean but that whatever flows over in our hearts will come out and be expressed.

in 1 King 11:2-4 the Bible says that Solomon's heart was turned away from the Lord. This means that it is possible for the heart to have it's focus turned away from God and focused upon something else.

In the Psalms there is some good advice about maintaining a pure heart. IN Psalm 112:7-8 we learn the the heart needs to be fixed by trusting in the Lord. This trust will establish the heart so that you are not driven by fear.

in 119:2 we see that keeping the Lord's testimonies and by seeking Him. Yeshua says that seeking the Lord first will help us to prioritize our life. In 119:10-11 we find that hiding God's word in our heart (memorizing) will actually keep us from sin.

i so want the thoughts of my mind and the meditation of my heart to please God and then lead me on the path of righteousness.

what do you do for your heart? are you willing to turn from the hard unrighteous heart and let the Lord write his word on your hear.

gotta sleep

peace

not be touched

This past Sunday I was preaching from Luke 5:12 – 26. Two cases of Jesus healing and in the process he totally transforms their lives. In the first case there is a person who is full of leprosy. This was a debilitating skin disease that rendered the infected person unclean. It would be the job of priests that is the qualified decedents of Aaron, to examine and determine if a person had just a skin disease or if it was actually a case of leprosy. The background for this is in Leviticus 13-14. In these chapters one reads about leprosy and mildew. The word which is translated as leprosy, in people, and mildew, in clothes and in the home, in English is the Hebrew word tzara´at, which I do not believe is what we call leprosy or Hansen’s disease. The uncleanness of the disease is contagious and could spread, while the disease was not, and this is why the person who is infected needed to be quarantined from the rest of the community.
The Hebrew 4 Christians web sight give a description of the meaning of the word, tzara’ at.

This text describes certain skin afflictions, collectively called tzara'at, that cause the afflicted person to be impure (tamei) and unclean (tumah). Note that tzara'at is not to be identified with leprosy (as some English translations claim), since the symptoms of tzara'at include not just the afflicted person's skin, but sometimes his clothes and house.

Tzara'at was a skin condition that could only be diagnosed by a kohen (priest), not a doctor. If white or pink patches appeared on a person's skin, the afflicted person was required to contact a kohen for an examination. If the priest detected 1) two hairs that had turned white within the spot, or 2) a piece of healthy skin in the middle of the spot, he was declared tamei (impure or unclean), and then had to follow the prescribed laws for the metzora (person affected with tzara'at); otherwise he was declared tahor (clean).

On the other hand, if the priest suspected tzara'at but was unsure, the afflicted person was quarantined and required to perform teshuvah (repentance). If a second evaluation indicated that the spot(s) had grown larger in size, the person was declared tamei (impure) and was subject to the laws for the metzora (i.e., dwelling "outside the camp" until the person was completely healed).

Tzara'at was essentially a spiritual disease - an affliction that the LORD used to help lead His people to teshuvah. The Babylonian Talmud (Erachin 15b, 16a) lists seven causes for tzara'at, including: murder, adultery, pride, theft, stinginess, a vain oath, and (most of all) for the sin of lashon hara.

In general terms, lashon hara means "the evil tongue," but it should not be understood exclusively as saying slanderous things about others or using profanity (though that is certainly included in the concept). No, lashon hara means saying something bad about another person even if it happens to be true. In other words, lashon hara is gossip, spreading evil (even if true) reports, or expressing a critical spirit about others. Such behavior is explicitly forbidden in Leviticus 19:16. This is also found in the Apostolic writings of the New Testament. What we say has such a powerful effect upon us and others. This is how Miriam got “leprosy”. Jesus says, in Matthew 12:36-37, that every careless word that we say we will have to give an accounting for. James 1:26 and 3:5-8 we see that the tongue is the cause of great sin in the life of the believer. Our words should be bridled. Luke 6:45 out of the abundance of your heart pours out words of evil or good. 2 Tim 2:16-17, gossip and vain babbling is not to be a part of the life of a follower of Yeshua. Such words become a canker. In Psalms 64 speaks about those who whet their tongues to shoot bitter words. This is the way of the unrighteous.

This does not mean that we do not speak out against evil and wrong doing but it has to with the why or the motivation behind our speaking. The first time the Bible shows us a person getting tzara’ at is when Moses speaks evil about the Hebrew captives.

The result of this pronouncement is total ostracism from the community. The person had to have tattered clothes, be unbathed and then call out, “Unclean, unclean”, to the people, that one might meet, that were not contaminated. People were to keep about 8 feet or about 2.2 meters away form the infected person. If the infected person is a priest then they cannot partake of the holy things offered until the Lord. If one does that then they will be cut off from the presence of the Lord, Lev 22:4. In Numbers 5:2 God tells the Israelites to put everyone who has “leprosy”, any type of discharge and anyone who is defiled by touching a dead body, outside of the camp so that the camp is not defiled.

I know that many people might react to these instructions and think that God is cruel, but our obedience to God should not based upon our ability to reason or if it makes sense to us, but because he is our King.

Sometimes this person became “leprous” because of sin, like Miriam and the house of Joab, and Azariah, Numbers 12:14; 2 Samuel 3:29; 2 Kings 15:5. Touching a person with tzara’ at made one unclean until evening. So there were no commands from God about not touching, but according to the oral Torah or the man-made rules then touching was impossible. Here we see that when Yeshua (Jesus) touches the person who was full of leprosy he is not breaking a command and thus sinning. You see at the touch of Jesus the person is made clean. I believe that point of healing started where Jesus touched him and the spread from there to the rest of the man’s body. In chapter 4 Yeshua tells his listener that only Naaman was healed while there were many other people with “leprosy” who were not healed. Now Jesus reaches out and restores this person to the community. He can not be around others and experience touch. This is very powerful. If we do not experience touch then we do not develop properly. We can even die from the lack of touch. Now while Yeshua has not broken any of Torah he shows that he is living in accordance to it by having the man to go and show himself to the priest and offer the required sacrifices. Here again is a great example of how Yeshua does not do away with the Law (Torah) but give us the correct interpretation of it. This is also an example of how we are to view the written word contra the rules, regulations, philosophies and theologies of man. Scripture is above that which is man made.

There are many conflicts that would cease to exist if we only placed the Scriptures about out reasoning and our own additions to God’s word. Since this disease is spiritual in nature then each of us should have God to search our hearts and root out that which is unclean, especially. Only he can cleanse us. Both the paralyzed man and his friends and the “leprous” man acted out of faith. To trust in God means believing in him in spite of you situation and the rules of social conduct. In both cases they were so desperate that they broke the social rules in order to be transformed by Yeshua. Are you desperate? I know that I am. I want the Lord to cleanse me with hyssop and take away my iniquity. I need Him so much in my life.

Lately I have been feeling like I have “leprosy” and am alone. I have been so frustrated that I have only had bad things to say and feel. I need for God to forgive my sin and lift this bitterness from my heart. I need God to touch me and make me clean.

Peace