Being able to attend the chapel services here has been pivotal
for me in my life here. If I remember
correctly, they started back up having services here at Eden in October. I had forgotten how good it was to sit and
listen to someone teach the Word of God.
It was a reminder of God’s 613 commandments of the Torah,
the Five Books of Moses, that He had given them to follow.
This garment was a long, narrow piece of cloth that one
would wear over their shoulders. They
would use this to cover their heads while they prayed, using it as a prayer
closet for protection. They would wear
this on their shoulders most of the rest of the time.
The second time that the word “wings” is used here, the
Hebrew word that’s translated as wings is “ebrah” which just means feather or
wing that a bird uses to fly. But the
Hebrew word that is translated into wings the first time is different. It’s “kanaph” which is an
edge or an extremity of a bird or an army that is used for protection.
This Hebrew word kanaph is translated into wings 75 times in
the Old Testament. I won’t go into all
75 times because y’all don’t have that kind of time. I do, but you don’t 😊. So, here are just a few of them:
This is where His other promises come in. He promises that He will show mercy to those
who trust in Him. Mercy is us not
receiving the punishment that we’ve earned by breaking a rule or law.
In prison, it’s common to hear inmates talking about
applying for clemency. On his way out of
office, President Trump gave clemency to quite a few people as is tradition for
a President to do on their way out.
Mercy is receiving a pardon instead of a punishment.
Grace is receiving the unearned favor of God.
Mercy and grace go hand in hand when we’re dealing with
God.
Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace
are ye saved through faith, and not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.”
Putting our trust in God’s word provides us with mercy and
grace.
I love that; instead of receiving
something negative, God doesn’t just put us back to zero, but He gives us an
increase. Mercy and grace is of
God.
He promises to provide us with protection. This promised protection is not against any
physical issues but is a spiritual matter.
This is a protection against our #1 enemy, Satan and his angels.
Satan is not a scary red horned, pitchfork carrying
demon. He can be a beautiful angel of
light.
2 Corinthians 11:14 says, “For
Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light”. He is a great counterfeiter of God.
He is a master of making the ungodly seem
godly.
Verse
15 of 2 Corinthians 11
says, “Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as
the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to his works”.
He tells the story of a man
who planted good wheat in his field but then his enemy came in at night and
planted tares, which is an unfruitful weed that looks just like wheat until it
is harvested. His servants wanted to go
and remove the tares, but the man told them that they will be separated out in
the harvest. Satan is good at distracting us from God’s order in our life
with what we think we should be doing rather than waiting for God to lead us.
Satan is also a musical angel, as we see in Ezekiel 28:13 – “…the
workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day
that thou was created”. And then in verse 17 we see that he is a beautiful angel. “Thine heart was lifted up because of
thy beauty, thou has corrupted thy wisdom by reason of brightness”.
Our enemy is too strong for us to defeat on our own. When we rely on ourselves to overcome our
lusts (of the flesh and of the eyes, greed, pride, selfishness, foolishness) we will undoubtedly fall.
Proverbs 3:5-6 instructs us on how to avoid falling into the
traps that are set for us and how to keep us on the right path. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and
lean not unto thine own understanding.” “In
all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.”
James 4:7-8 tells us to “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from
you. Draw nigh to God, and He will draw
nigh to you.” Our only defense against
Satan is to come in close to God.
Micah
tells us in simple terms how to accomplish this in
6:8: “He has shown thee, O
man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
There is protection from our enemy.
Going back to Psalm 57:1, there is a promise that the “calamities”
in our life are temporary.
The complexity of emotions that I have had and that I still
have, I don’t know if I can ever express in a way that anyone who has never
been in my position could understand. I know
that the reverse is true as well, I hope to never have to understand what it’s
like to have a loved one in prison.
The
ups and downs are rough, but they are double for me knowing that I put my
family in the position they are in with me. Yet, God provides comfort to all of us - as it says in
2 Corinthians 1:4, God "who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God".
I still have peace most of the time right now, but it has not always
been that way.
One phrase that I repeat to myself a lot is, “This is only
temporary. Someday, I’ll get out.” Granted, it’s a long temporary, but it will
come to an end eventually.
No matter if you’re locked up or free, calamities happen
daily. Whether they’re tiny or massive,
we will always have troubles in life.
But each one is only temporary, it will not last forever.
First of all, once this life is over our troubles in this flesh
will be over. The Apostle Paul in
2 Corinthians 4:17-5:8 tells us that our “light affliction, which is but for a
moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory”. In verse
4:18 he tells us to focus on the
unseen rather than the seen (our calamities) because “things which are seen are
temporal”.
They rise up and then go
away.
In verse
5:1 he says that this tabernacle, or temporary
body, will dissolve but we have an eternal body waiting for us. And finally in verse
5:8 we see that awesome
truth and promise that when we (born-again believers) die, or leave this body,
we will be with God! I love how Paul
puts it, “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the
body, and to be present with the Lord”.
Not only will our current circumstances change in eternity,
but they also change daily, monthly, and annually. It’s like riding a really long rollercoaster,
lol. There are ups, downs, in betweens,
tunnels, and even loopity loops.
The
trick to riding life’s rollercoaster is found in
Philippians 4:11-13, “Not that
I speak in respect of want; for I have learned in whatsoever state I am,
therewith to
be content. I know
both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I
am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer
need.
I can do all things through Christ
which strengthens me.”
The trick is to have contentment no matter where you are on
that rollercoaster. In my opinion,
seeking shelter under the shadow of His wings is having contentment until the
calamity passes.
One more passage to look at is
Mark 5:25-34. Here we find a woman who has had “an issue of
blood” for twelve years. This means that
she would have been considered unclean for those 12 years. She heard about Jesus and decided to step out
and seek the healing that only He provides, as she had already tried the
physicians, spending all of her money.
She reached out and touched His garment and was immediately
healed. She had already reasoned that if
she “may touch but his clothes” that she would be made whole. I believe that it went beyond just touching
his clothes, but actually touching the hem of His garment.
In
Matthew 14:34-36 we see a multitude seek Him out in order
to touch that hem so that they could be made whole. I believe that hem is the fringe of His shawl
that represents the healing, protecting wing/Word of God.
For me, this means so much.
After my arrest, the reality set in after about two days. The first two days were so chaotic that I
didn’t have time to really comprehend any of it. It was on Friday the 13th of December 2019,
sitting in the seg cell in Mansfield when the reality hit that my life as I
knew it was over.
The climb out of that pit has been hard, but well worth
it. There were three times in the next
two weeks that fueled the first few steps for me.
The first was the calls I made to my parents who offered
unconditional love and forgiveness. The
second was the first letter that I received; it was from one of my
sisters. I underlined a certain portion
of that letter and I sent it home to save it, as she offered unconditional love
and forgiveness, and told me that my sin would not define me in their eyes,
that I was still the same man that they always knew me as. And the third was a conversation that I had
on Christmas with someone who had more to be offended by than almost anyone
else. They offered unconditional love
and forgiveness.
Do you notice a pattern?
Unconditional love and forgiveness. That is what God’s word provides for us,
unconditional love and forgiveness.
I have experienced what I believe to be supernatural,
miraculous, forgiveness. I have been
made whole by simply trusting in the wing of God, the hem of his garment, the
Word of God.
Growing in the Lord is absolutely a process. I’ve recently found a program called
Celebrate Recovery and it is helping me a lot.
It outlines a great process in which we can examine ourselves using the
Word of God and we can make adjustments in our life according to the Word. Would you believe it if I told you that it
all revolves around Godly grace, mercy, honesty, and forgiveness?
I will finish with a great passage from
Psalm 19 –
(7) “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul:
the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.”
(8) “The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart:
the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.”
(9) “The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever: the
judgements of the Lord are true and righteous all together.”
(10) “More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much
fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.”
(11) “Moreover, by them is thy servant warned: and in the keeping
of them there is great reward.”
I love y’all!
Tears. I love you, Brett!
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