Zephaniah 3 Reflection

Yesterday, a dear friend had shared with me Zeph. 3:17—and another friend had shared it with me on my birthday!!! Anyway, I looked it up on my phone last night. So this morning when insomnia resulted in my pulling up my Bible app—I thought to read 1 John!—God had this passage for me to reflect on instead. I’m so thankful, because it really ministered to multiple points of this chapter of my story. These are my brief thoughts from meditating on this passage this morning.

3:8 The command to wait for God and His day of indignation, anger, and jealousy (El Qanna!!!).* Devouring of all the earth is coming.**

3:9 Why wait for that? “For then I will restore”—God will purify His people to call on His name and serve Him!!!

3:10 Irony is—Uganda is kind of beyond Ethiopia…..  Beautiful promise!

3:11 As someone who has struggled with pride as a self-protection mechanism, I am super thankful for this verse!!!!!

3:12 The positive side of the promise in the previous verse: Amen, Lord, may it be so!!!!!

3:13 The Promise of a righteous remnant who will speak the truth and NOT be made afraid by anyone, as they feed their flocks.

3:14 Be glad and rejoice with all your heart! Sing and shout!

3:15 Such an amazing, beautiful promise!! Our King is (will be?**) in our midst, and He has cast out our enemy!!!

3:16 Do not fear—let not your hands be weak! (“Be strong in the LORD and in the power of His might!” – Eph. 6:10)

3:17 Such beauty & grace in that promise, it overwhelms me!

3:18-19 God taking the sorrowful & the reproached and the lame and the outcast & the shamed and restoring them!!! Dealing with the perpetrators of affliction.

3:20 Promise of fame & praise to them – those who had formerly suffered affliction! By God’s work of restoring the captives!!!

*Those who have watched The Truth Project by Focus on the Family may recognize this name of God. Del Tackett, the host, talks about El Qanna—literally, the jealous God—in one of the video sessions. I don’t remember which one, sorry! But he talks about how we can be grateful that God is so passionate for the faithful covenant love of His people that He will let nothing stand in the way of His sanctification process….or something along those lines :)

**This verse makes me a bit uncertain of whether the rest of this passage falls under the “already” or the “not yet” category of prophecy fulfillment. Any thoughts from my readers? I can see how some of these things have already been fulfilled through Jesus’ redemptive work, but at the same time I can see how some of these promises are still to be fulfilled in the future.

Exodus Lessons

I’m reading through the Bible in a year, following the Read the Bible for Life plan. I just started last month…but with everything I’m juggling I’ve gotten behind. So when insomnia kicked in again last night/this morning, I pulled it out and read a couple day’s portions! Here is how Paraclete used it to minister to my heart…..

“I will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will pursue [the Israelites]. Then I will receive glory by means of Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am Yahweh.” Exodus 14:4, God speaking.

For Moses, God pretty clearly laid out His game plan. The first Passover had just occurred, the Israelites had just been brought out of Egypt through God’s mighty deliverance and by His awesome miracles overwhelming the Egyptians. But God wasn’t through yet. He wanted to show His mighty power towards the Egyptians one more time, that He may receive the glory.

Interesting that God indicates this final Exodus miracle was for the sake of the Egyptians rather than the Israelites! Possibly because the Israelites should have already known that by this point? But as we shall see….they still had more lessons to learn!

So in order to prove His own glory yet again, God told the Israelites where to go and where to camp, so that Pharaoh would think they were confused and boxed in…easy prey (14:2-3). God purposely orchestrated a stressful experience for His people—having an army of angry masters in chariots chase down a people with old & young who had barely tasted freedom yet—to prove a point.

If any human being did that, it would be considered selfishness and megalomania to the extreme. It certainly doesn’t look/feel like something a loving God would do. But in the holistic complexity of Yahweh, He—of course—had a greater plan He was working out.

“As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up and saw the Egyptians coming after them. Then the Israelites were terrified and cried out to the LORD for help.” 14:10

Definitely a very natural human response to the situation they were placed in!!! I would have been terrified too, definitely. Yet at the same time, their fear shows how young they were in the journey of trusting God. Obviously, they had not yet been made perfect in love (1 John 4:18). Neither have I. Because when stressful/painful/frustrating circumstances come up, such as having a hard time falling asleep last night, the temptation to question God is right there on the doorstep of my heart.

BUT, the Israelites chose to cry out to the Lord for help in the midst of their fear. So that was a positive point! Moses admonished them,

“Don’t be afraid. Stand firm and see the LORD’s salvation He will provide for you today; for the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you, you must be quiet.” 14:13-14

I can’t help but wonder if Moses had communicated to the Israelites what God had told him in 14:4… We’re not told for sure. But the next verse in the story is interesting…God kind of rebukes Moses (or possibly that’s intended for Israel) for crying out to Him—I guess because He had already told him this situation would be for His glory??

So you know the rest of that chapter of the story – as God promised, He instigated another great, miraculous deliverance. And in chapter 15, Moses and the Israelites had the right response: singing a hymn of praise to God! Note verse 13:

“You will lead the people You have redeemed with Your faithful love; You will guide them to Your holy dwelling with Your strength.”

Spot on, perfect, 100% true – the people had just been shown evidence of that 11 times! (Ten plagues in Egypt + Red Sea)

But before that chapter even finishes, after three days without water, the grumbling and uncertainty crop right back up…this time at Marah (15:22-26). Then it happens again, in the following chapter—just a few weeks after leaving Egypt—and the issue this time is food. So much so that the Israelites wish “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt…” (16:3).

And so begins the pattern which would repeat itself again…and again…and again over the next thousand years of Israelite history in which Missio Dei pursued His people, but they could never maintain a heart attitude of trust and obedience for very long.

When I was young and naïve, it was easy for me to mentally criticize those silly people who could never learn to keep on practicing what God was teaching them.

Now I’m a little older, and not quite as naïve. I’ve passed through more life experiences, and I have definitely witnessed that the questioning, rebellious, wandering heart of the Israelites is the same heart that resides in me, apart from Christ’s redemptive work.

That has been and continues to be a very humbling process for me…especially these past two years.

Honestly, among a plethora of other things, I don’t like the fact that I’ve been constantly struggling with insomnia to varying degrees for the past 10+ weeks. That in those weeks, I’ve never once slept straight through the night to be awakened by my alarm…unless I took a dose of the strong prescription medicine that made me sleep between February and July.**

BUT GOD.

As I wrote about in the conclusion of my l-o-n-g blog post last weekend, my story isn’t really about me. It’s about HIM. And yes, it can be very hard to maintain that perspective…especially if I’m not choosing to be 100% dependent and leaning on my heavenly Father.

But I hope that I am taking baby steps in that process of learning and growing…especially as God continues to lavish me with HIS grace and HIS unconditional love. I am so blessed. Blessed to be loved by and to serve a God who works for His glory 100% of the time, but who also works out ALL THINGS for the good of me and each of His people 100% of the time. And when my mind focuses on the wonder of His beautiful Truth, I give thanks—that He is the Only Perfect One, awesomely good at doing both. I certainly could never do that. So obviously I need to stop trying to play God!

I’m still very much on this journey. Please join me in continuing to pray for me in the ups and downs of this beautifully challenging transitional season. Most of all, that I would be content to give HIM all the praise & glory!!

**During my health roller coaster over the past nine months since insomnia forcefully pushed its way into my life, I’ve been amazed again and again and again at how God has created us as such complex beings…physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. There are so many different approaches to dealing with health issues, and I’m kind of muddling my way through it. I have trusted mentors in my life advising very different things. And no, I haven’t prayed about it nearly as much as I should have….because, like the Israelites, I’m afraid.

I’m not going to spell it all out here. And honestly, I’m looking for prayers a whole lot more than advice. Suffice it to say, I am amazed at the courage of the woman in Luke 8:43-48 for holding onto hope for 12 years of suffering without a solution.

In my case, I have probably spent more money on health these past months than my parents ever spent on other medical issues for me during the rest of my life (not counting orthodontia as a medical issue). Medical doctors have run a wide variety of tests and haven’t come up with a biological reason for my insomnia. I’ve seen two psychiatrists and a counselor and am now part of an accountability group, trying to find answers from the mental/emotional/spiritual side, as depression & insomnia manifested their ugliness together for me. I’ve gone the prescription medication route. I’m trying the natural/homeopathic route. So far, there has been no easy solution.

When I came out to Portland, I procrastinated finding someone here to help manage my medication, because I had a long supply & was doing well. God used a rough week as a catalyst to get me back on track trying to find a road to healing. I’m thankful to have an appointment with a Christian psychiatric nurse who is qualified to manage my medication and who also, by God’s perfect plan, has experience with treating insomnia & hormonal imbalances. Unfortunately, the soonest I could get in to see her is Nov. 15^th. And so I wait, learning to practice trusting God in the meantime. It’s been a hard road, but HE IS FAITHFUL—ALWAYS.

Thank you to everyone who I know cares & prays for me!!! I literally couldn’t have made it through this year without God using you in my life as His tools to encourage & uphold me in my weakness. I share my journey with you for HIS glory (2 Cor. 4, especially vs. 6-8).

To Remember or to Forget?

What do we do with the past… with the sorrows and with the joys, with the blessings and with the pains, with the brokenness and with the redemption?

This idea has been rolling around in my head all week. And it matters: How I handle the past shapes how I experience the present and how I view the future.

Is the past something to be held onto and cherished, or something to be swept away and forgotten?

As in so many other areas of life, I believe the Biblical answer is a balance between the two extremes.

All one has to do is read the book of Deuteronomy to see the importance of remembrance! A quick online concordance search for “remember Egypt” brought up 10 verses in that one book. Again and again, Moses tells the people to remember…even though the oldest people he spoke to then had been only youths during the Exodus (Numbers 32:11).

But what exactly does Moses tell them to remember? And this is important.

Five times, the command is to remember that the people had been slaves (5:15, 15:15, 16:12, 24:18, 24:22). That would not have been a fun memory to hold onto…it was a memory full of suffering, oppression and possibly shame as well. Something that the religious leaders in Jesus’ day had possibly repressed or forgotten or probably were simply ignoring (John 8:33).

That wasn’t the only thing Moses commanded the people to remember though! Also five times, the admonition is to remember God’s salvation (5:15, 7:18, 15:15, 16:3, 24:18). Because the enslavement of a nation was not the end of the story. God remembered His covenant with His people, and performed mighty works, miraculously redeeming His children out of that bondage – and what was well worth remembering and celebrating!!

Another two times, the command is to remember past sin—both the people’s general rebelliousness (9:7) and Miriam’s specific consequence (24:9). These memories would also not be pleasant to hang on to, but they remained important as a warning against future disobedience…a warning few generations in Israel’s history successfully heeded. This brings to mind the common saying along the lines of ‘those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.’

Fast forward to the time of the early Church. On Passover, a festival specifically for the purpose of remembering the past, Jesus gave a similar command to His disciples when instituting the Lord’s Supper: “Do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19).

But there is also a place for forgetting, or at least choosing not to remember. God makes that promise to His people, in Jeremiah 31:34 (and referred to in Hebrews 8:12): “For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

Paul also uses himself as an example of intentionally forgetting, in a verse a close friend reminded me of this past weekend: “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13-14).

So that is the tension we are called to live in—forgetting past things which distract us from our heavenly goal, but always remembering how God has moved and worked in our lives.

In this season of my life, I’m trying to learn/practice maintaining that balance. Grieving and repenting of past hardships/sins…not stuffing the feelings of sadness or guilt down into a festering wound. But even more intentionally letting go of the past that I cannot go back and change, remembering all the good things God has worked and is working in my life—remembering His manifold blessings.

This is a journey and a tension I believe many, if not all, people are experiencing to some degree. So let us pray for one another, for God’s continued healing and restoration. For His joy and love to be what flows through us to others!

A Camping Story in two parts

I am here in Portland, OR, staying with a lovely lady who is housing me as I go through the Servant Teams program. She is part of a writing group, and this evening she invited me to join her and the two other ladies in attendance. They have prompts, and then take 10-12 minutes to write about the prompt. I had fun doing it, and thought I'd share with you the little stories I came up with.

Two of the prompts ended up kind of being one story for me...so here goes :)

The crisp autumn wind swayed the boughs of the pine trees above us, whispering through the arms of needles. I and my cub scouts had trekked deep into the forest for a camping expedition. All day we had explored the area, hunting berries, fishing, and hoping to be lucky enough to find a bee hive full of honey. But the last had not come through.

So here we were, five of us, gathered around our campfire which pushed the boundaries of darkness out of our little clearing. And the cub scouts were asking for a story! Our earlier failure brought a youthful escapade back to mind.

"When I was a young cub scout," I began, "I was always one to get into trouble. But I also had the best senses in my pack. I could hear the buzz of a bee's wings and follow it back to the hive better than any other cub scout! Then one day, I found the most massive hive ever. It was about 20 feet up, in the decaying stump of a lightening-scarred tree. I could hear the whine of thousands of bees inside, and I so craved the sweet treat they hid that my mouth salivated!

"I reached up as high as I could, but I had a problem. A very embarrassing problem--I was afraid of heights. I was too afraid to climb that tree and retrieve the amber nectar. But I also didn't want to leave the tree, possibly never to find such a treasure trove again! Finally, my hungry craving won out over my fear. I grabbed that tree, gripping it tight with my nails. I climbed it and scooped up a big helping of honey. And it was the most delicious thing I ever tasted!

"And that is the story of how I finally became a climbing bear!"

~~~~~~~~~~
So the prompt for that one was to pick one of my hostess' bear statues and put myself into the shoes of the bear, writing a story from its point of view. Here's the statue I picked:

For the second prompt, we had to somehow incorporate one of the two following ideas: "He woke to birdsong" OR "'Sh! Hear that?' 'I didn't hear anything.'" I was going to try to include both, but ran out of time too soon.... As I said, this ended up being a continuation of the previous story! :)

~~~~~~~~~
Later, after I tucked my cub scouts into bed, I sat for a long time staring at the dying embers of the fire or gazing up at the starry sky. Eventually, my eyes began to feel heavy, as the cubs' had, and I lumbered a short distance to my bed of pine boughs.

The next morning, we awoke to the sounds of birdsong--the sweet whistle of cardinals, the drumming of woodpeckers, the harsh yank of Blue Jays. The best part of being a bear and going camping is that there is no tent to break down, no sleeping bags and luggage to pack away. You just wake up and, when you're ready, mosey on down the trail--if you're even following a trail.

Today we were, because we had big plans: exploring a cave that my grandpa bear had discovered nearby! The cubs, always full of energy, scampered and pranced through the trees. By the time we reached the cave site, it was mid-morning. Thankfully we had stopped by a river earlier to catch a fishy breakfast. Well, I had caught some. The cubs had just wanted to splash about, until I scolded them for scaring all the fish!

But now we were preparing to descend into the dark depths of the cave. Grandpa bear had told me how he hid here for a couple days when some man creatures came hunting for him--and I was eager to see the place that had saved him and made my existence possible!

~~~~~~~~~~
There's my two brief story snippets! :) Thanks for reading!