Tag Archives: Unity

Safety in Numbers

30 Monday Jan 2023

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman!

I almost didn’t post this week.  Last week was fraught with difficulty and I wasn’t able to complete the studying I had laid out as thoroughly as I would have liked.  Perhaps I will have done by next week.  I was going to skip a week but then I came across a quote in a book by Don Keathley and, since it did relate to my current study of Isaiah 45:7, I am going to both share it and expand on it.

The quote is: “You are relieved of judging anything and anybody at any time as good or evil.  Be still and simply respond to the voice within.  Be as Jesus is only say what you hear the Father say and only do what He shows you He is doing.”1

There is such an incredible freedom in no longer eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil but eating from the Tree of Life that is Jesus Himself.  What liberty I have in the Spirit!  I no longer do what seems good in my own eyes nor do I determine what others do to me as good or evil.  I am learning to think in terms of “life and not-life”.  This doesn’t mean I live in some sort of imagined Holy Spirit ivory tower where, whenever evil things happen to me, I pretend they are NOT happening because “God is in His heaven and all is right with the world.”2  All due respect to Robert Browning but I don’t know of anyone who can look around right now and say a statement like that has any truth to it.  Neither was this statement true closer to home.  All is NOT right in my world.  Last week was difficult both emotionally and spiritually.  I had to deal with difficult people and I am fairly certain those same people thought it difficult to deal with me.

Why?

One answer is, while I am no longer eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, many others still are.  They are both determining for themselves what is good and evil and then judging my behavior according to those standards: I am not doing what they say is “good” therefore I am evil.  Perhaps you have experienced this yourself.  And, perhaps you are like me: a people pleaser.  I don’t want people to be mad at me and neither do I want people to dislike me.  But, when I began eating from the Tree of Life and fixing my eyes solely on Jesus, this new lifestyle meant that I truly did only those things I saw the Father doing.  There is a quote I’ve seen floating around and I do not know who to attribute it to.  The quote is “It might look like I’m doing nothing but on a cellular level I’m really quite busy.”  In order to only do those things I saw the Father doing, I had to know what the Father was doing.  In order to know what the Father was doing, I had to live as a sheep that knew only my Shepherd’s voice and, in order to do that, I needed the Holy Spirit to teach me how to know that Voice in the midst of countless others.

There is an interesting piece of scripture.  It’s one tiny sentence but there is limitless treasure to be mined from it.  It’s Exodus 33:11: “So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend.  And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.”  Isn’t that amazing?!  Here are two entirely different relationships two men had to the Lord.  The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend and that is wonderful.  Joshua however, did not depart from the tabernacle so he stayed immersed in the Lord’s presence.

I wonder how many times members of the camp grumbled against Joshua.  No doubt there was plenty to do and Moses was just one man.  And, there was no denying he was getting old and that lazy servant of his was young and able bodied but was he out helping Moses?  Noooo.  Joshua was not departing from the tabernacle and what could he possibly be doing in there that was more important than meeting the immediate needs of the camp?

It did not look like Joshua was doing very much from those outside, but on a spiritual level, both he and the Lord were very busy.  Joshua was being prepared for a unique position within the people of God and so are you and I my fellow believer.  It might not look like we’re doing very much, but on a Spiritual level, both we and the Lord are very busy.  I’ve written about it before but the Hebrew word for wait as in “wait on the Lord” (Ps. 27:14) or “they that wait upon the Lord” (Is. 40:31) is qavah (H6960) and means “to bind together”.  It might look like we are doing nothing, but this waiting on the Lord is anything but passive.

And yet, we have an adversary who “walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).  That Serpent of old is revealed as a dragon who “deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9).  How can we be certain we are not being deceived?  I encourage you to take some time and check out how many times the words “in Christ” are used in the New Testament.  We can trust that our God WANTS us to know Him and isn’t looking to pull a fast one on us.  The apostle Peter quoting Isaiah writes, “’Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame’(Is. 28:16)” (1 Peter 2:6).  We have the absolute trustworthiness of our God revealed in Jesus.  Trust in Him and we will not be put to shame.  By no means!

But still, “Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14) so how can we be really really sure the voice we are hearing is truly the voice of our Great Shepherd the Lord Jesus Christ?  I am not going to share the process through which I have come to know the guidance of the Holy Spirit and discern the voice of Jesus Christ and the will of the Father.  Take any ten believers and you’ll find ten different workings of the Spirit.  There are a few things I think are universal experiences though and the first is follow your peace.  The peace of Jesus Christ rules in our hearts and we can’t go wrong following our peace.  That doesn’t mean the things we are given to do are easy or even always that pleasant but 100% of the time I’ve had a deep calm peace about doing them.

This is in contrast to the uncomfortable stressed out feeling that comes directly on the heels of being shown what to do by the Spirit.  I can tell you my experience has been that the tactics of the enemy have not changed since that first “Hath God said” the Serpent uttered to Eve.  Again, 100% of the time, the call to disobedience has boiled down to “Hath God said…?” Not always in those exact words but that I have found that same hiss of the Serpent under every argument against doing what I know I see the Father doing.  There are also the guilt words, as my mother calls them, of “should”, “ought”, and “must”.  Whenever someone comes at me using those three words, I cling ever tighter to the cornerstone that is Jesus and listen for His voice.

One last thing: strong emotion does not necessarily equate to a moving of the Holy Spirit.  I was privileged to have an experience with my family in the last few weeks.  We participated in a supposedly ‘spirit-filled’ situation and there was no denying we laughed and cried.  There was overwhelming emotion and, when the experience was over, we wanted to have it all over again.  However, in the following days, I began to realize that strong emotion was all it was.  There was no answering from the Holy Spirit deep within my spirit.  I kept that realization to myself until my mother mentioned she too thought the experience was all emotion.  Does that mean it’s bad and no one should have participated?  Of course not!  I believe Romans 8:28 is true and God works in all things for the good to those who love Him.  What I am saying is test everything and just because a group of people are insisting something is Spirit-filled doesn’t mean it is.

This might mean you feel like the only person seeing something different from the rest of the group.  There is a perceived safety in numbers: if they are seeing/saying/doing it, then it must mean I am safe if I also see/say/do it.  No.  There is such freedom in Jesus Christ and the fruit of the Spirit is a very real way of life.  The joy of the Lord is alive in us through the Holy Spirit and, while it is our strength, it should not be confused with happiness.  Hebrews 13:12-13 states, “Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.  Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.”

When the Spirit opens our eyes to the hope of our calling in Christ Jesus and the richness of His inheritance in us, there is no unseeing it.  We have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light and, once we taste the reality, there is no falling for the counterfeit.  It is painful to see what someone else does not see and to be written off as deceived or worse, evil.  It is sometimes lonely outside the camp because we don’t always see the others also outside the camp.

It is not possible to be alone here.  I have another quibble with the great Robert Browning.  Our God is only in His heaven in the sense that “He is before all things and in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17).  I came across an exhilarating passage while conducting my study on “evil” and it’s found in Jeremiah 23:23-24: “’Am I a God near at hand,’ says the Lord, ‘and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places so I shall not see him?’ says the Lord; ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ says the Lord.”

Our safety is not in what a great number of people believe is true, our safety is Jesus Himself.  He is at hand.  He is not up or over or afar off.  It is true that he is before us and around us and behind us and with us.  Best of all, He is IN us.  Do not be deceived away from this great truth: the being of God cannot be separated and so, because the Holy Spirit lives in us, so does the Lord Jesus Christ.  Because He is in the Father and the Father in Him, the Father is also in us.  We can know and do only what the Father is doing.  Oftentimes, what the Father is doing is not at all what others would have us do. Don’t worry if your holding fast to the cornerstone does require you coming outside the camp.  I’ll see you here.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

  1.  Keathley, Don, Hell’s Illusion: Exposing the Myth of Hell, 2022
  2. 718. Pippa’s Song. Robert Browning. The Oxford Book of English Verse (bartleby.com)

My Missing Piece

12 Monday Dec 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello and welcome to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am returning to my Isaiah 45:7 study.  I am still in the beginning stages of studying “evil” with the intent of understanding just what God meant when He said, “I create evil.”

I must say, it does appear to be a hopeless undertaking.  I looked up “evil” in the Davis Dictionary of the Bible and found this as the first sentence: “The origin of evil is a problem which has perplexed speculative minds in all ages and countries”.1  The Hastings Dictionary doesn’t appear to hold out much hope either because, at the end of the entry for “evil”, I found: “The speculative question of the origin of evil is not resolved in Holy Scripture, being one of those things of which we are not competent judges”.2

These two statements did almost obliterate an enthusiasm already dampened by the sheer vastness of the subject of evil.  If such august personages as Aquinas, Calvin, Plato, and Plotinus have turned their minds to the subject of evil and failed to find a definitive answer as to its nature and source, what hope did I have?

Well, firstly, I do not seek to provide a definitive answer.  Even if I were to do so, the odds against anyone else agreeing I had done so are astronomical.  And yet, my enthusiasm was restored during the retreat I attended earlier this month as I sat in the airport terminal reading a book while waiting for my flight.  The book was “Authors and Their Public in Ancient Times” by George Haven Putnam.  I both laughed and somewhat sadly acknowledged the truth of what he wrote in his introduction.  Mr. Putnam spoke about his reasons for writing what he called an “essay” stating it was to “trace, as far as might be practicable, from the scattered references in the literature of the period, an outline record of the continuity of literary activity, the methods of the production and distribution of literature, and the nature of the relations between the authors and their readers”.3  He then when on to write:

“The majority of my reviewers were ready to understand the actual purpose of my book and to recognise that my part in the undertaking was limited to certain general inferences or conclusions as to literary methods or conditions.  In one or two cases, however, the critics, ignoring the specified purpose and the necessary limitations of the essay, saw fit to treat it as a treatise on classical literature and devoted their reviews almost exclusively to textual criticisms and corrections.”4

This made me chuckle but it restored my enthusiasm because, no matter what I discover or what conclusions I draw at the end of this study, someone will argue.  Knowing and accepting that is liberating.  Some arguments are useful but there are those who argue for the sake of arguing.  I cannot tell you how many times someone has argued against something I have said but has done so by picking up a phrase or even a single word, constructing their argument on that, and ultimately ignoring the material point I took some pains to make.  This is irritating and yet these critics are also useful because I have learned-and am continuing to learn-how not to fall into the trap of arguing back and forth about something that really had no bearing on the main point in the first place.  I include “am learning” because there are still times when my mind gets caught up in refuting this or that and it takes a moment to mentally step back and realize, “wait a moment: we’re not even talking about the same thing!”

And so, expecting arguments and not expecting a definitive answer on the origin and nature of evil, just why am I conducting this study?  1 Peter 3:15 instructs us to “sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you”.  That is what I am seeking to get out of this study.  I want to understand as much as I can so I at least have both a scripture and study based answer for any question I am asked.  The question specific to this study is; “why did God say He creates evil?”  Since I am trusting the Holy Spirit to guide me into all truth, I am looking at the scriptures that pop into my mind as I am conducting the study and the first scripture is Psalm 8:5.  For the sake of context, I’ll begin quoting in verse 3: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him?  For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor.”

The bit of scripture that popped into my mind was “you have made him a little lower than the angels”.  You might be wondering what that could possibly have to do with evil so allow me to tell you how and why I got here.  This translation: “a little lower than the angels”, is not accurate.  The Modern Young’s Literal has it, “and cause him to lack a little of Godhead.”  The Amplified renders it, “but little lower than God” but adds [or heavenly beings] as a disclaimer while the NIV says, “little lower than the heavenly beings” but adds the footnote “or than God”.

The Bible fascinates me and one thing that keeps me wondering is why the translators have chosen to translate certain passages the way they have.  The only answer I have is that their theology couldn’t hold up to what the original language is actually saying and they thus translated passages to say what they thought they ought to say.  This particular passage is one such case in point.  If you have a Strong’s concordance, I encourage you to open it to the “Angels” entry and look at the list of numbers.  You’ll see 4397, 4397, 4397, 4397…and then you’ll see 430.  4397 relates to malak in the Hebrew and it means “to dispatch, as a deputy or messenger”.  This is the word usually translated as “angel” or “angels”.  430 is the word Elohim which is not translated as “angel” or “angels” anywhere except Psalm 8:5.  It is, however, very often translated as “God”.  For example, in Genesis 1:1 “God” = Elohim. 

The word translated “lower” is the Hebrew chacer (H2637) and it does mean “to lack.”  I looked it up in the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon and over and over again the word is used to mean “lack”.  It is only by stretching both the intent of the words and the imagination that one can came up with “lower than the angels” as a correct interpretation of Psalm 8:5.  The Hebrew says, “made to lack from God” though I quote it to myself as “lack from Elohim”: I prefer the Hebrew word.

It is because “lack from Elohim” is how I have long thought of Psalm 8:5 that it popped into my mind as I was looking up “evil” in the Dictionary of New Testament Theology.  I read through a brief comparison of the different theories on evil and then read, “Whichever cause is regarded as the basis of evil, even when it is seen as hamartia (Sin), it must not be regarded as personal guilt, for it is not the result of a free and responsible personal decision but of a lack.  It may be the lack of knowing the divine providence (Socrates), or of the working of a cosmic power.”5

I read that, Psalm 8:5 popped into my mind, and I took a moment to consider the evil in the world as the result of a lack.  A lack of what?  With Psalm 8:5 in mind, I must first consider it as a lack from all that God is.  This lack is the will of God for he made man to lack and, more than that, called man good.

I turned my mind to consider man placed in the garden with the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Man at this moment had the very breath of God in them and were not yet subject to death but had to look elsewhere for the source of their life.  They could eat freely from the Tree of Life but Life was something both exterior to them as well as interior.  That Life was provided by God in the form of the tree (exterior) but it was as they ate of its fruit that they would know Life (interior).  Man did lack from Elohim because Man did not have their own source of life to draw on.  In choosing the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, man really did believe a terrible lie.  Already without a source of life in themselves, they decided to make themselves their source anyway and decided it was right to know good and evil for themselves.  Of course the result was death.

I take a look at my own life and breathe a massive sigh of relief.  I do not have any life in myself!  I have no resources to meet my own needs much less the needs of others around me.  I can pretend with all my might and I might even fool a few people along the way but I am NOT enough.  The relief comes in knowing I was not designed to be.  I was made to lack from Elohim.  I was made to know Him alone as the source of my life.  And, what a blessed gift to be alive now.  I am not holding onto a promise of one to come who would one day crush the head of the serpent and restore to me what was lost.  The One has come!  Everything that was to be done, He did! 

Jesus Christ IS now, this very moment, my life.  He is my missing piece, the One who perfectly fits me because I was designed to live in union with Him (See Ephesians 1).  I no longer attempt to fit myself to anything else because I am complete in Him (Colossians 2:10).  What a blessed rest!

I have been meditating on Deuteronomy 30:19-20.  Moses declares he has set before the people of Israel life and death.  He begs them to choose life so that they may “love the Lord your God that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days”.  I pray to utterly know this truth for myself and I pray it also for each of you.  May we know Jesus for in Him is life and that life is the light of men.

Amen

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

  1. Davis, John D., Davis Dictionary of the Bible, Royal Publishers, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1973, Page 234
  2. Hastings, James, Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, Fifth Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2001, Page 247
  3. Putnam, George Haven, Authors and their Public in Ancient Times, Third Edition, Cooper Square Publishers Inc., New York, New York, 1967, Page iv
  4. Ibid., Page v
  5. Brown, Colin, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume I, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1967,1971, Page 562

Other References

The Comparative Study Bible, The Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984

Brown, F., S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Eighteenth Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2018

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Young, Robert, Modern Young’s Literal Translation: New Testament with Psalms & Proverbs, Greater Truth Publishers, Lafayette, Indiana, 2005

Desideratum

17 Monday Oct 2022

Posted by in Poetry, Writing

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View From the Top of Knob Hill in Edwards, CO

This week’s post is a poem inspired by various musings. The study I’ve been conducting on Isaiah 45:7 has been foremorst in my mind and I was recently blessed with the opportunity to spend some time in nature. I had expected it would be a time to more deeply experience the Holy Spirit and, while it was, it didn’t happen the way I thought it would. I’ve been thinking on that experience as well and then remembered 1 Kings 19:11-13. The result of all of that is this poem. 

Desideratum
I had a great gift given me
To seek a place I could be still
I had come to the trail's head
And I started up the hill
I felt myself battered & crushed
Convinced all Man touches he destroys
And I needed time to be away
Escape from all the noise.

I wanted time alone with You
Without my mind being swarmed
By all the screeching clamoring
I wished a deeper connection formed
With no more concrete underfoot
I was sure I'd hear the sound
Of Your voice-but though I listened close
I heard nothing from the ground.

A storm was brewing in the mountains
And though it wouldn't reach me for some time
A breeze arose which refreshed and cooled
Soothed me during my climb
I was sure as I ascended
And the air around me thinned
I'd hear You speaking loud and clear
But You were not in the wind.

At last I reached the hilltop
There was no one else around
I sat down to rest a bit
On a small bench I had found
I wondered if I'd hear You now
That I sat still on my own
But all I had was certainty
I was not sitting there alone.

Your Presence was there with me
And at once I began to sing
A song of Your lovingkindness
I felt my soul within take wing
Buoyed by no strength of mine
But a stirring deep inside
I heard You sing along with me
From that place where You abide.

Nature is all well and good
It is important to take rest
But I need not ever search for You
I remember how I'm blessed
In You I live and have my being
Your Spirit lives inside of me
And I do not need to look elsewhere
We exist in seamless unity.

I rise and begin my descent
In a very different mood
Than the one I had started in
I am healed and renewed
This truth I have I must declare
Perhaps I will write a poem
And tell all Your Love Purpose
Is to make each heart Your home.



My Feet Are on the Rock

08 Monday Aug 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Personal Essays, Studies, Writing

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Happy Monday and welcome to another post on Renaissance Woman.

Does anyone remember the poem The Blind Men and the Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe?  It’s a poem about six blind men who seek out an elephant so that, by observation, they might understand the creature.  Each of the six men encounter a different part of the elephant and liken it to something familiar: a wall, a snake, a fan, etc.  The last stanza of the poem states, “So, oft in theologic wars/The disputants, I ween/Rail on in utter ignorance/Of what each other mean/And prate about an Elephant/Not one of them has seen!”

Last week I posted on the Hebrew letters that comprise Shin ש and how I’ve come across two schools of thought on that.  One is that the letter is comprised of Vavs and Yods and the other is that the letter is a Yod, a Vav, and a Zayin.  Which is correct?  I don’t care one way or the other because, as I followed both paths, I found myself in the same place: 3 Vavs and 4 Yods give me the number 7 which is Spiritual Perfection and the number of the Zayin is 7 which is Spiritual Perfection.  I found value in looking at both but the study did get me thinking.   

I cannot count how many times over the past weeks and months I’ve heard believers of various denominations stress the importance of “sound doctrine.”  I have found “that’s not sound doctrine” is used as the final hammer strike on the last nail in the coffin of another person’s argument but there are times when the speaker will explain just what they believe sound doctrine to be.  I listen and sometimes agree and other times disagree.  This made me wonder, just who decides what “sound doctrine” is?  I see one denomination convinced what they teach is the soundest doctrine of all unlike this denomination whose teachings are based on false interpretations of scripture and definitely not like this other denomination whose teachings are a delusion of Satan.  I must infer then, that by “sound doctrine” what they actually mean is, “what our denomination teaches.”

What is doctrine?  The definition of the word is, “something taught, teachings, something taught as the principles or creed of a religion, political party, etc.; tenet or tenets; belief; dogma, a rule, theory, or principle of law.”  There is nothing in this definition that suggests a personal knowing and relationship is necessary.  Such is also what I find in those insisting everyone have sound doctrine: there is only a rare mention of knowing God for yourself.  I am not concerned with sound doctrine.  I am concerned with knowing the Father because knowing Him and knowing Jesus Christ is the very definition of eternal life.  “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). 

I recently read a book called Evidence Not Seen by Darlene Deibler Rose.  When the author married her first husband, Rev. C. Russell Deibler, she and her husband both knew they were called to the Mission Field and, specifically, the Philippines.  Mrs. Deibler was several years younger than her husband and had just graduated from school.  She relates in her book that, before the Church would allow her to accompany her husband to the Philippines, they tested her in doctrine and theology.  She passed the tests and was allowed to go.  While in the Philippines, World War II broke out and Japan took over the islands.  Mrs. Deibler and her husband were interred in separate camps where her husband died.  Mrs. Deibler spent four years in various camps and I was struck by how it was not doctrine or theology that sustained her: it was the vitality of her relationship with Jesus Christ.  Mrs. Deibler-Rose writes, “Experientially, I was learning to understand the comfort of the Holy Spirit.  Sometime during the dark hours I slept.  The sword of sorrow had pierced deep within me, but He had bathed the sword in oil.”  

This book gave a graphic picture of the difference between having doctrine-which is by definition a lifeless thing-and having a vital relationship with the Living God.  To me, those quibbling over whether or not someone’s doctrine is sound are like the blind men quibbling over the elephant.  Not one of them was wrong per se but neither were any of them correct.  Not one of them had fully seen. 

There is a passage in Colossians I’ve been meditating on for some time: “Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God” (Colossians 2:18-19).  Our reward is Christ Jesus.  He is our very Life.  In Him, we are made one with the Father.  Everything the Father has belongs to Jesus.  Everything Jesus has is ours because His Spirit lives within us and declares it to us.  (See John 16:13-15)

I know this not only because the Bible tells me so but because I KNOW HIM!  He is real!  He is alive!  He is alive in me right now!  This is not something reserved for the future.  It is not something I earn if I follow Jesus’ example and live a moral life.  He freely gives Himself to me, teaches me who He is, and brings me into relationship with Himself.  There is no substitute for knowing Him and this knowing is my litmus test.  I don’t compare what I hear from others with any doctrine: the Spirit within me guides me into all truth.  Jesus Himself is that absolute living truth and, as He has joined me to Himself, I am one spirit with Him.

Let none of us allow ourselves to be cheated of our reward by anyone who has not seen.  Let us hold fast to the Head who is Christ Jesus.  Let us test everything and hold fast to what is true.  “Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection…” and, finally, let us “no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head-Christ…” (Hebrews 6:1, Ephesians 4:15)

Amen.

All Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

The poems of John Godfrey Saxe/The Blind Men and the Elephant – Wikisource, the free online library

Guralnik, David B., Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, Williams Collins + World Publishing Co., Inc., Cleveland • New York, 1970, 1974

Rose, Darlene Deibler, Evidence Not Seen: A Woman’s Miraculous Faith in the Jungles of World War II, A Ruth Graham Dienert Book, Harper San Francisco, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, New York, 1988

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