Is Yahuweh a dirty rag to be used whenever we need to clean up something in our lives? Is He nothing more than a band aid stuck in our back pocket to be pulled out when we get a boo boo? Where are the ones of Psalm 119 who cry out ‘Greater is your Torah than thousands of silver and gold’? My previous wife said to me once, right after we divorced, she said: “I put you in my back pocket and only pulled you out when I needed you.”
Yahuweh said, Search for me with all of your heart, and I will be found. Do we even understand what it means to search for Him with all of our heart? Does the phrase ‘die daily to self’, seem like a pie in the sky idea that only applied to the early followers of the Way? Does that phrase repulse you, or cause you to do all you can to find the hidden things within the heart, that cause distance between the Giver of Life and our own selves? Searching for Yahuweh with ALL the heart is the only way He can be found. For to search for Him with half the heart, and pleasing the flesh with the other half, will only find us on an endless journey pursuing a fantasy ‘god’ we have made up in our own minds.
How easy it is to forget Him and trust in our own abilities out of fear that ‘maybe He needs some help’. Well, the fear of the Father not coming through and thinking He needs help from us, is not the fear He expects from His children. Yesterday, after coming inside the house; after the family whom Abba led to us to purchase our car within 12 hours; I began, once again, to rely upon my own self. When the family prepared to leave, I turned and looked at Todd, held out my hand to shake his and said these words: “based upon your word, Todd, that you will purchase the car; I will remove the listing/advertisement from all classified sources. I said this because I wanted him to know that I trusted his word that he will purchase our car in a little over a month.
After they left, I went in the house and immediately thought to myself, and telling Rivkah, that maybe we should leave the advertisement on there until we at least get a signed document from them stating they will purchase the car. Was I doubting the fact that Todd wasn’t going to keep his word or was I doubting that Abba wasn’t in complete control? Abba just brought us a buyer, pulled off a miraculous event (down to the last detail), and, although I witnessed it, I immediately thought, “well, we better wait ‘just in case’ he backs out.” Either Abba was in this or He wasn’t.
Today, I began thinking of the children of Israel who had just witnessed the destruction of Egypt and crossed over a massive body of water that had been split for them. A few days later, they begin complaining and doubting that the One who brought them through that great deliverance, was going to abandon them in the wilderness to starve to death. In my own doubting (as a security factor), I was willing to leave that car listing on the websites (even though I said I would remove it), out of fear that, what if, the family backs out of the deal. Either Abba was in this or not. I choose to believe that His timing is absolutely perfect and has pulled something off that I could never have done myself. Thus, I will remove the advertisement as I said I would.
Words have cheapened over time. In the ancient days, a person’s word was believed because of the action behind the word. Why is it that in some countries, you believe whole heartedly that if you steal something, you lose your hand. Versus, in our country, you may get a slap on the hand, or punished in varying degrees, based upon how a particular judge feels at the time. There are no constants anymore. No believing in a persons word; because to believe anymore in what a person says, is like Ecclesiastes mentions – “feeding on wind”.
I do not wish to downplay the miraculous testimony posted earlier today in our blog, but wanted to share my heart as a reminder to many, of how easy it is to forget how Yahuweh has taken care of us time and time again; yet we continually need proof that He will do all that He said He would do. I wrote this because I want people to see how easy it is to immediately jump right back into – “well, just in case Yahuweh doesn’t come through – I have plan B” No wonder we have such trust issues. No wonder we never see Him work for us today.
He wants to be known, not just a rag we stuff in our pockets for whenever we mess up, we pull Him out to clean up our disasters. And we wonder why He is never found? We think we seek Him, trust Him, make Him number 1 in our life; however, I believe that if we can get off the roller coaster of life long enough to stop and listen to His heart cry out; we can see easily, the ways of self we put before Him and those things that keep Him at a distance.
I went to Israel in 2011 seeking the passions of my own heart; seeking direction for my own life (and trying to use Father to do it). It sounds horrible to say that, but had he shown me and given me my own desires, would I now be writing this today? It was not until I began seeking the desires and passions of His heart, that I began to see my own path clearly.
Is seeking Him easy? Is laying our lives down and picking up our execution stake easy? I should say not, because if it were, there would be many of us. However, there are always the few. Notice, when Messiah said to His disciples – “let us go to the other side”. Messiah wasn’t commanding a cruise liner or a steam ship, capable of carrying hundreds and perhaps thousands of people.. no! The little boat He was in, could only carry the few. He never says to the many, lets go to the other side, but only as many that will fit in a small fishing vessel – as many that choose to follow Him to the other side.
The time of His people using Him to serve their own desires and passions is gone. The disciples were in a state of terror when they said, “Master, care not that we will perish?” Messiah Yahushua was already put out with them for disturbing His sleep; however, He rebuked the wind and the waves and there was calm. If our faith is not rooted now in what He said, the time will come when He WILL be silent, not waking up to meet our needs; for now, He is giving us the time to develop a relationship to rely upon Him with everything that is within us. When the winds and the waves began to increase, those that have gotten comfortable with carrying Him around in their back pockets, will soon realize that, when they go to pull Him out; He is no longer there.
It is to the ones that DO seek Him with ALL of the heart, that He will be found in that day of terror, and delivered. That day is almost upon us. We will no longer have the luxury to say, “Master, do you not care that we are going to perish?” Either, He lives and moves and operates within us now, or when the hour comes, those that do not possess Him, even what they have will be taken away.
No, Yahuweh is not a dirty rag just to be used as we deem fit, but a righteous and just Elohim that will not tolerate anyone who carelessly plays the “I need you, I need you not” routine. He isn’t a yo-yo to be played with. We either need Him 100% now, or we don’t need Him ever. He either is called upon 100% of the time or never. Cease be the days that we only need Him when our “prideful” self demands Him to beckon to our every need. He is Elohim and we are not. Job stopped listening to his friends who said, “well maybe you should do this, or this is why Yahuweh left you”. Until we tell our “friends” to shut up, and choose to listen to the One who said, “where were you when I created the heavens and the earth”, we will go along life bouncing from one opinion of man to the next; until Yahuweh finally comes and bounces us out of His presence forever.
To those of you who feel I’m talking to you… I’m not…I’m talking to Derek Townsend, and my own failure of not depending upon my beautiful Savior for ALL of my needs. I do hope and pray, though, that the conversation I had with myself here, was overheard by some of you.
Shabbat Shalom!
With Joy in Him,
Derek
Awesome! Once again Yahuweh comes through with a word…..even if it was through you Derek talking to yourself!! (smile) Thank you so much for sharing. But most of all….thank you Abba Father for Your mercy and grace in reminding me about trusting You!!
I’ve been thinking about this post since you put it up…and came to the realization that THINKING is a major source of a lot of my “problems”! The flesh wants to think everything through, analyze, rationalize, etc etc, instead of just having total trust in and completely surrendering all control (that I never had anyway!) to Yahuweh. Thanks for sharing this, Derek. Praise Yah!
Thank you for you comment!
Yes, if our THINKING is not lined up with the Mind of Messiah, we will surely drift off course. You are correct – we are deceived into thinking that we can make it on our own, by remaining in control. However, although we do have complete control of our lives through our will, we still cannot make it on our own. We have the freedom to choose life or death. Really, is there anything else? We have the will and control to relinquish our will and control to Him.
Control isn’t a bad thing as long as we “willfully” deliver it up to the One who is in ALL control. Where we go wrong is using the control (the will) in our lives to ’selfishly get something for ourselves’ because we think that either Yahuweh won’t give it to us, or that He is insufficient to deliver. Its the old mindset, “well, I’m the master of my own destiny”.. this mindset is taught to us from early age, saying that, ‘unless I make it happen myself, it won’t happen.’ The end of the story, really, is the intentions of the heart. Controlling our mind, body to align with our reborn spirit is one thing, but to try and control situations for our own pleasure is another.