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Wellspring of Peace

25 Monday Jul 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman.  This week I am continuing my study of Isaiah 45:7 specifically “peace”. 

I remembered Malcolm Smith had done a lecture series on the Beatitudes (Matthew 5) and, curious what he had to say about peace, I found and listened to them.  The Hebrew word translated “peace” in my study passage is shalom and, in the first Peace lecture, Mr. Smith explores all the word means.

First of all, shalom is not merely the absence of war.  Shalom describes union-the fitting together of two or more, and it means harmony, melody, covenant friendship.  Shalom is reconciliation, wholeness, completeness, tranquility of heart, and a sense of well-being.  Mr. Smith also says shalom is abundance.  Shalom doesn’t stay inside of us.  It comes out through our words and hands and brings abundance because it springs from a mind that thinks abundance or thinks in terms of “enough”.

I have had ample opportunity to think about these definitions of peace.  I have been going through a great deal over the last weeks.  I believe it is a Holy Spirit truth that He does not guide me into a path of study without also guiding me through situations where I get to experience just what I’m studying.  I have wondered “how am I going to pay for this”, “what am I going to do about that”, and “I have no idea how to begin to deal with this other thing.”  I have needed Peace and there have been times I have felt anything but peaceful.  I have Mr. Smith’s definitions written down and my thoughts have not progressed far beyond the first definition he gives: that of Union. 

I know my Father is with me no matter what I am going through and no matter how I might feel about it.  He cannot leave me.  We are united, fitted together, One Spirit because I am joined to the Lord Jesus Christ in and through the Holy Spirit.  This is a truth that deserves celebration and peace and yet it is one that is also frustrating.  He is with me.  I am in Him and He is in me.  In Him I live and move and have my being every iota of every day.  This being so, if He would just tell me what I should do next, where were going, and what exactly is going to happen, then I would have peace. 

I don’t know about any of your experiences with living life out of the Holy Spirit but He has never done that for me.  I pray about a situation, put it entirely in His hands (something I often have to do over and over), trust that He will handle it, and then ask Him to open my eyes so I can see how He has chosen to handle it.  The path ahead is never completely clear.  A door will appear to open and all I can do is try and walk through it.  Sometimes it will be an open door but sometimes, while the door itself will close, it will have opened a pathway to learning something I did not know and experiencing something new: in this case, peace.

Union.  What does it mean?  There are various groups of people who are united around an idea or a creed but this is agreement rather than union.  True union belongs to God.  We find it in the heart of God in that mysterious union of Father, Son, and Spirit.  We are included in this union in Jesus Christ by His Spirit living within us.  This union is vital and alive.  I have seen a picture of this vital union during my study of the Hebrew Letter Shin and I was not surprised Mr. Smith’s first definition of shalom was union as the first letter of shalom is the Shin.

I’ve looked at Shin twice before and shared how the word Shin means urine and, without the Yod; means tooth, claw, or jaw.  The picture is of chewing food, breaking it down, digesting it, and then eliminating it as waste.  Shin represents the totality of an overall process, one that is whole, entire, intact, complete, integral, full, and perfect. (1)  This process is one that is repeated over and over and, considering the learning process, what we repeat over and over becomes inculcated within us.2

I have also found Shin is the letter in the Hebrew word for fire (esh), and begins and ends the word for the sun (shemesh).  The three upraised arms of the letter Shin represent the flames of fire.  Here too is the idea of consuming and, thinking of the refining of gold or silver; there is once more the idea of processing and completion.

While conducting my study on Isaiah 45:7, I have also been reading a series of studies on the Book of Revelation.  I have just finished the section on Revelation Chapter 12 so have the Woman in the Wilderness fresh in my mind.  She is persecuted by the dragon but is given two wings of a great eagle so she can fly into the wilderness to her place where she is nourished. (Verses 13-14).  The wilderness is a dangerous place where food and water are scarce and yet the woman has a place in it and it is a place where she is nourished.  This was called to mind when I looked up Shin in Mr. Haralick’s book and saw he gives it the definition of Cosmic Nourishment.

I can attest to everything I’ve written in this post being true because I’ve experienced it.  My life will be full of knowledge of the Holy Spirit and awareness that I am in the midst of great rivers and streams and then those rivers and streams dry up and I find myself in a barren wilderness with no idea what’s going to happen or where I’m going to go next.  I read in those same Revelation studies that God calls us to the wilderness places, not to torment us, but to bring us into a deeper revelation, relationship, and reliance on Him.  I see this is true because there is a specific place in the wilderness for the woman where she is nourished.  She is not cast into the wilderness to wander aimlessly until she drops dead.  No, she is cared for.

Knowing it is true doesn’t make it easy.  The pain is real.  The circumstances are real.  The worry and helplessness are real.  I do not feel nourished and cared for right away.  I know God is with me.  I know He will never leave me nor forsake me.  I know our union is one that cannot be dissolved no matter what happens.  Yet I know I am in a tight place with no way out, totally helpless, and all I can do is wait until He rescues me.  My attitude is not always one of faithful submission.  It’s more, “a little help here!  Now!”

I am still in the wilderness.  I don’t know what will happen from one day to the next.  I still feel the grinding and processing revealed by the Shin.  In the midst of it, the refreshing and nourishment has come so I can also attest to the faithfulness of our God.  He is with me, always, even unto the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).  He does make a way where there is no way and the spring of peace has just begun to bubble to the surface.   

Inculcate: to tread in, tread down, to trample underfoot, to impress upon the mind by frequent repetition or persistent urging

  1. Haralick, Robert M., The Inner Meaning of the Hebrew Letters, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1995, Page 295
  2. Ibid.

Other References:

(1) WEBINAR 273 – Peace Makers – YouTube

The Woman in the Wilderness

The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

Bentorah, Chaim, Hebrew Word Study Beyond the Lexicon, Trafford Publishing, USA, 2014, Pages 148-152

Guralnik, David B., Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, William Collins + World Publishing Co., Inc., Cleveland•New York, 1970, 1976

Sonnet

25 Monday Jan 2021

Posted by in Poetry, Writing

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I live in Love: He is my All in All

My Sabbath Rest, My Everlasting Hymn

He strengthens me so that I cannot fall

But rather I can walk on waves with Him.

We are so One, He is my very breath

My Guiding Light, the Wisdom that I need

As I am in the One who conquered death

I boldly go wherever He will lead.

The darkness seems so thick in this late hour

Yet He has shown me what will come to pass

I fear no defeated enemy’s power

Because we stand upon the sea of glass.

The One I love is called Faithful and True.

Behold He comes! He maketh all things new.

The Cleansing Word

21 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by in Gospel and Letters of John, Studies

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In The Grammar of Complexity, I shared the idea that “born of water and the spirit” from John 3:5 means being born of the Word of God and the Spirit of God.  I believe this interpretation because of my personal experience, a baptism story I find in the Book of Acts, and various scriptures throughout the New Testament. First things First.  I have been the recipient of an immersion baptism and it happened like this:

It was only a few years after my devastating car accident.  I’d moved here to Colorado and was feeling somewhat adrift.  What was I supposed to do when the planned on college degree was no longer an option and I still had yet to figure out what being differently-abled really meant?  One of my mother’s old friends came into town to attend a conference given by an evangelist she liked and invited me to go along.  I did so and ended up receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  I attended the church that had hosted the evangelist and was a regular attendee for close to two years before I was baptized.  I did it all backwards if water baptism is supposed to be part of the new birth.  The word in seed form had been planted in me throughout my childhood by various teachers at various times and was sinking roots and growing even though it often times didn’t feel like it, then I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, and finally was baptized in water.  That water baptism was my declaring a change that had already taken place and my commitment to the new life that had been birthed in me.

I imagine you saying, “I’m not concerned with the experience of some random person.  Experience does not theology make.”  I agree which is why I turn your attention to Acts Chapter 10.  There is a fascinating story here about a centurion named Cornelius.  No one among the apostles was looking to baptize Cornelius.  The entire chapter shows God at work bringing about what He wanted.  I encourage you to read it: it’s a wonderful chapter.

In brief, Cornelius was fasting when an angel of God appeared to him and told him to send for Peter.  The angel told Cornelius what city Peter was in and who he was lodging with before departing.  Cornelius sends two from his household in the company of one of his soldiers who, it appears, was also a believer.  They go to Joppa to get Peter and bring him to Cornelius.  While they are traveling, Peter has the great vision of the sheet bound at the four corners descending from heaven filled with all sorts of animals and creatures he’d been forbidden to eat.  The command came from God to kill and eat to which Peter strenuously objected and then came the reply; “What God has cleansed you must not call common.”  This happens three times and then the sheet is taken up to heaven.

While Peter is wondering what his vision means, the Spirit tells him there are some men seeking him.  He goes down to Cornelius’ men, hears why they have come, and the next day he and some of the brethren return with them.  Meanwhile, Cornelius has called together his relatives and close friends in anticipation of Peter’s arrival.  Peter arrives and explains why he came and Cornelius shares his vision.  Peter begins preaching the word that is Jesus coming, crucified, and resurrected and something amazing happens.  The Holy Spirit falls on everyone who heard the word.  The brethren that came with Peter were amazed because the Holy Spirit had been poured out on Gentiles and I imagine a great part of their amazement was because most of these Gentiles were Romans.  It is after this, the word preached and the Holy Spirit poured out, that Cornelius and his household are baptized. 

The lack of water baptism was no hindrance to God.  A metanoia had already happened in Cornelius and how I wish it was described in scripture!  Imagine a man growing up in the Ancient Roman world with its myriad gods coming to know the true God of Jacob.  How did that happen?  I can only imagine.  God Himself had Cornelius send for someone to preach the word to him and his household, then came the outpouring in the Holy Spirit, and then baptism.  It’s all backwards, if indeed water baptism has anything to do with being born again.

In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul addressed some contentions that seem to have arisen due to who had baptized whom. Paul says, “for Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (verse 17).  I am convinced that if “born of water” meant water baptism, and that NOT being baptized in water was serious enough that a person could not enter the kingdom of God (John 3:5), Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles would have looked very different.

In closing this week’s post, I wish to share a few scriptures:

Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures. James 1:18

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him.  1 John 5:1

Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever. 1 Peter 1:22-23

Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word. Ephesians 5:25-26

For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before, “’This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,’ says the Lord: ‘I will put My laws into their hearts and in their minds I will write them’ (Jeremiah 31:33), then He adds, ‘Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more’” (Jeremiah 31:43). Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.  Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.  Hebrews 10:14-22

To be continued…

Scriptures taken from the New King James Version

Back to Part Five

Continue to Part Seven