← Thoughts
Looking outside at the trees all green and blooming in summer, I was reminded how seasons carry a spiritual application. Just when a person finally gets into the swing of summer—enjoying the heat, the sun, and the pretty foliage—and that becomes the new normal, it starts to change again. The foliage shifts colors, begins dying, and the next season arrives. You settle into that one too, only for it to turn toward winter, and so on
I thought of people who never experience four seasons—those who live somewhere mostly pleasant year-round, like Hawaii or other islands, or on the opposite extreme in places like Siberia or far south in Antarctica. It relates spiritually to resilience shaped by what we actually experience.
Proverbs says that if you fail in the day of trouble, your strength is small.
10If you falter in the time of trouble, your strength is small. Proverbs 24:10
On the surface it seems an obvious statement, yet it points to a deeper truth: anyone can appear well equipped and ready for challenges until the challenge itself arrives to prove it. You do not really know whether your strength is large or small until an adverse time comes when you must use it. If you fail then, you discover you were not prepared.
People who live through regular weather changes grow more prepared for change simply because they go through it. Someone from a steady climate might think, “I can handle some bad days; it rains here sometimes,” yet the temperature stays much the same and major disturbances never come. Dropped suddenly into real cold, their body would not know how to deal with it.
There is a spiritual counterpart in the things we go through. When we are used to the cycles of life, we become more able to enjoy the good times while they are here, to understand transitions as a normal part of this life, and to accept that they must happen. Jesus said occasions of stumbling must come. (Matthew 18:7) They are designed to happen in this current fallen world system, as God shows us our sin through the law, proves we cannot uphold His purpose on our own, and gives the gospel as our way out. All these things work together.
Even those of us regularly exercised by seasons can still get caught up in the moment of liking a particular season and imagining it will stay forever. We need to remember that seasons come and go; that is simply a normal part of life.
The Good Message
As you read this site, you will hopefully come to know Yahweh more fully.
But all of this continuing knowledge is useless unless and until you come into union with Him. I use the word union because it is truly a marriage. It is that deep connection we all seek, for which we most often look in other people. However, the truth is that our hearts will only be fulfilled when we enter that union in fullness with the One Who made us.
This is the grace of God, that He has not stayed distant for us only to worship as Creator. But He has come unto us, even become one of us—in His Son, Christ Jesus—in order to share an intimate union with us. He desires such closeness that it truly will envelope our entire life, transforming us into something new and wonderful.
You may have already entered this union with Him and only seek to know Him better through reading here. But if you have not, as you do read, let this Gospel sink into your heart as you read it now.
God loves you, and has cast your sins into the sea. He has sent His only Son as the Savior of the world—that includes you.
That Son, Jesus Christ, was born as a man through a virgin who had given her life to Yahweh; He lived without sin, reflected the glory of His Father, God, in all His words and deeds, and was persecuted even unto death because of it.
His death upon a cross was the powerful explosion that separated you from your life of death. It remains for you, now, to enter into that death with Him. As you die to the one you are now, a person separated from God from your many sins, you will be born anew, with a nature predisposed to live rightly. This gift is free to you, with nothing you can do to earn it. It is the mercy of God to offer it to you, as He loves you so much! All you must do is receive it by trusting Him to have delivered you. Simply place your life in His hands and embrace the freedom that came through that death on the cross.
The Gospel is that Jesus did not remain dead, but rose again on the third day after His crucifixion! Death could not hold Him, as He was without sin. And so death will not be able to hold you, as you identify with Him fully through your trust in Him. Let go of yourself and confess Him as Lord of your life. The power of His death and resurrection will work in you all that your Creator has destined for you. You will truly enter a new life and experience that intimate union you have been seeking all of your life.
So ponder these words as you read here of this great God—Yahweh—and all that He has revealed to His creation. Let His Spirit testify to your heart that these words are true, that God is Love, and that He sent His Son so that you might receive the life that is unbound by time and space. As you feel that witness in your heart, simply believe and receive what He is offering to you, even now, and begin your new life as a child of God.
Please write to me and let me know when you take this step, as I will be your brother in Christ—we will be one in Him!
