Flamingo or Pigeon?

 

I found this little banner at the Dollar Store the other day, and because I like flamingos, I bought it, not realizing it had a saying on it. When I unrolled it and read it, I laughed and hung it up outside as a decoration in my yard. It makes me smile when I look at it.

However, as I was contemplating the meaning, I saw that the most obvious meaning in a worldly sense means ‘to stand out from the crowd.’ It occurred to me that this could be offensive to some of the ‘pigeons’ out there who might choose to look at it negatively, but then I began to see a deeper meaning to it from a biblical perspective.

We are called to be “lights on a hill” to the lost—a bright light of God’s love for His creation. As ambassadors for Christ, how are we doing with that? 

Are we being flamingos, not in the sense of our physical beauty and plumage or lack thereof, but inwardly separated out of the flock of humanity? Or are we hidden in the crowd, doing what they do in order to fit in and be like them so we can be accepted?  We are called to be separate, a peculiar people unto the Lord. Again, as the "peculiar, set apart people" of God, how well are we doing with this?

The other thing I saw was that each flamingo was a different shade of pink—one dark, one medium, and one light.  Skin color doesn’t matter to God for He made us all. We can look at the natural world around us and know that He likes variety and lots of it.

There are all kinds of lessons to be found in the natural world if we but have seeing eyes and hearing ears.

Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.    1 Corinthians 15:46  

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:   Romans 1:20

Presenting Pretty Poison

Lessons can come from strange places. I attended a going away party recently for someone moving out of town. There was a lesson in all of that, one I have come to call Pretty Poison.

There was a beautiful cake at the party. It was so big, everyone was invited to take some home. Even though I am a diabetic and my husband and I have both decided to forego the sweets, I took some cake home. I proceeded to dish it up on a pretty plate for breakfast this morning and WHAM! I had to take a picture of it. I saw something in my mind's eye that became the graphic for today's blogpost.

And, yes, I ate some of the cake minus the frosting which I threw away, feeling convicted the whole time. This is obviously one of those areas I am struggling to bring into total submission to the Holy Spirit. Some days are better than others...grrrrr. In spite of that little struggle on my part, I did get the lesson combined with an intense punch-in-the-gut feeling, from which I am still smarting a bit.

I usually start my day doing a bible study using Bill Bullock, Sr.'s Torah portion studies. I was about half way through that when I decided to get myself some breakfast and the above incident happened. I've included an excerpt from that teaching below. It all just seemed to combine together with my little mini vision of pretty poison. Hopefully, you will see the connection as well.

And I quote:

"...As a people, at Sinai and beyond, the Creator of Heaven and Earth has drawn near to us. We are conceived and born into that nearness. As Moshe taught us in Deuteronomy 4, the nations are to marvel at this, saying:  What great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the Holy One our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him?  Deuteronomy 4:7.  The nearness of the Creator is a wonderful thing, of course – if, as, and to the extent we respond accordingly and appropriately. If, as, when, and to the extent we respond to the Bridegroom-King’s nearness by responding to Him in childlike wonder, with humility, gratitude, and graciousness, and lean into Him, sh’ma His Words of Life, and sh’mar His covenant, we get blessed marvelously by reason of His nearness.  He actually wraps cords of lovingkindness around us - and those cords warm and comfort us. They give us shalom rav [i.e. great peace and security].

 Ah Dear Reader, but when we willfully rebel against Him . . . .  When we  trample His Betrothal covenant [i.e. His wonderful Torah] under our feet . . . . When we choose to clothe ourselves in layer after layer of willful sin . . . . And when we refuse loving call after loving call to make t’shuvah . . .  .  Well, when we do things like that the very same nearness of the Holy One which blessed us so wonderfully before actually becomes a threat to us. The same cords of lovingkindness by which we were once so comforted suddenly – by reason of our straining against them - start to burn . . . and chaff . . . and bind. 

Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger?

I am by no means a country music aficionado. Occasionally on my many automobile trips in connection with my business, however, I will flip through the radio stations trying to find something to listen to in an attempt to keep myself awake.  In the rural areas of Arkansas and Texas one normally finds only stations playing country music.  On one such occasion, as I was driving in a late-night daze through the backwoods of Arkansas, the ‘seek’ button on my radio kept returning me to a tune in which a country singer poignantly was asking his wife, in his song, why she did not wear her wedding ring when she went out [to nightclubs?]. I do not remember the melody or any of the words.  I only heard part of the song.  All I really remember is the title. It was “Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger”.  That title pretty much describes, in my mind, what the Divine Bridegroom would ask us as we squirm and struggle against His cords of love – i.e. the Shabbat, the mo’edim, and the mitzvot and mishpatim of Torah.

 As we seek to increase the distance between our hearts and His, the cords of lovingkindness with which He bound us to Him in a lover’s embrace begin to chaff against our flesh.  The harder we pull against those cords, the more it hurts.  The longer we strain against those cords, the more likely we are to sustain permanent injury.  If one of us does not ‘give in’, we will die. And so, if we continually refuse to make t’shuvah [repent and return], in order to keep us from fatally injuring ourselves, the Holy One eventually looses the cords of lovingkindness - and lets us go.  It is tough love at its ultimate level.

Willful rebellion against and refusal to hear the voice of the Lord God Almighty carries with it results that we prefer to ignore because our flesh wants something different. In the case of the 'pretty poison' of 'cake love', I wanted, in fact craved, some sugar, which I know is not good for me, yet, the urge to eat it anyway was overwhelming. I saw in that the analogy, a parallel of Israel's (and our) urge to follow after the ways of the worldly, ungodly cultures and religions in which we live by moving away from the Holy One who truly loves us. All these ungodly attractions are just pretty poison. It is no different today than it was back in the days of the Old Testament times.

The only real difference nowadays is man's ability to get the false message out to the masses with an ease that is astonishing. The wrapping on the message appears to be different, but the contents haven't changed a bit. The question still remains:  what wrappings and trappings in today's world lures us into agreeing and joining with the ungodly in our time? What 'god' are we actually closer to? Where and in what ways are we being deceived? What lies have we swallowed so willingly? What lies do we now call truths and what truths do we now call lies? What happened to discernment? Where should we be looking for that discernment?

The answer to all of this hasn't seemed to have changed much either: right where our Bridegroom-King desires us to be, "nearer my YHVH to thee...".

The Greatest Threat to Mankind

Excerpt from the Rabbi's Son   Friday's Study for Week 52

READINGS:   Torah Vayalech:   Deuteronomy 31:24-30 

Haftarah: Isaiah 56:6-8 B’rit Chadasha: Romans 7:13-14

Ra [i.e. what feels like drama, trauma, and/or calamity to your flesh] 

will befall you in coming days – because 

you will bring forth/make ra 

[i.e. what feels like trauma, drama, and/or calamity to your flesh].

 [Deuteronomy 31:29]

The greatest threat to mankind and Creation is Torahlessness. Torah is the Holy One’s antidote for the ingestion by human beings of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Any time you take away the Torah from the world; or stop its dissemination and implementation; or misappropriate it to use it as a tool of judgment - the world is thrown back into the pre-Flood cataclysm in which every intent of the heart of man is only evil continually. Genesis 6:5.  

...All of mankind is thoroughly infected by the rebellion/stiff-neck virus. That is why the Holy One has given us the Torah – to enable us to overcome, and model for the world how they too can overcome, the toxic effects of that virus. This is not designed to be a one-time miracle cure; it is a day by day, year by year...We are no worse than any other ethnic group – but without embracing and walking in the Torah we are certainly no better than any other ethnic group...Even with the Torah, we are imperfect healers. But despite all that, we are the vessels the Holy One has chosen to use. 

What is it in us that we still need to let the Holy One work on?  Moshe describes the fallen state of man as consisting of five primary symptoms:  1. ‘rebellion’, 2. a ‘stiff neck’, 3. ‘corruption’, 4. ‘doing evil’, and 5.‘provoking’ the Holy One.

1. REBELLION In the Hebrew that Moshe wrote the term used is meri – mem, resh, yod. This is the same word that Moshe used in Numbers 20:10 right before he lo sh’ma-ed [disobeyed] the Holy One’s instructions and struck the rock instead of speaking to it. Interestingly, meri is a form of the ancient verb root marah, meaning to strike or to smite in anger or other selfish motive.

...The fallen human condition is to over-react, to lash out, and to smite. Some do it with icy stares. Others do it with harsh words. Some do it with bare hands; some with the power of the pen or computer keyboard.  Others do it with sticks, stones, knives, or guns. But at the root of it all is marah. Flowing from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, meri is the natural reaction of man’s flesh to anything that does not please it.  It over-reacts. It lashes out.

Do not ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for me and for thee!  We are not to judge the meri in others; we are to recognize and deal with it in us. We are to know the enemy within, and anticipate his strategies. We are to learn to recognize the ‘tells’ of the meri in us. And we are to stay in humble submission to the Holy One and His Words in order to keep the meri in us in check. ... If we are to overcome the meri that thrives in our flesh, we absolutely must cling to the Holy One and walk humbly in the instructions of Torah.

2. STIFF-NECKED The second symptom universal among fallen men pointed out by Moshe is the tendency to exhibit a stiff neck.  The Hebrew phrase we translate as ‘stiff neck’ is oref qasheh. Oref means neck. Qasheh is an adjective meaning hardened, firm, and difficult to work with.  Picture a sheep that will not turn its head toward – or turns away from – its shepherd.  Not only will it not sh’ma [listen to] the shepherd’s voice, it resists closeness and subordination.  It is unresponsive and independent – even when it would be in its best interest to respond and cooperate. It is a state of self-obsession and self-will, and of loyalty to one’s personal agenda rather than the Kingdom’s agenda.  That is the default state of the human race since the Fall.   Jew, Gentile; man, woman; white, black, Hispanic, Asian, Arab, it does not matter.  

How flexible is your neck, Dear One?  When the Holy One speaks, do you turn your head and incline your ear?  Or is your neck too stiff?

3. CORRUPTION  The third universal symptom of fallen man is that he is ‘utterly corrupt’. In the Hebrew text the operative phrase used by Moshe to describe this condition is sh’chet tash’chitun.   It is a doubled form of the Hebrew verb shachat. The first usage of this word in Torah is found in Genesis 6:11-12, when the Holy One describes the state of men of earth prior to the Flood.  It means infected with and spreading a highly contagious and extremely toxic form of tumah [i.e. uncleanness].  

With what are men infected? ...whatever form it takes, the causative agent is always what Torah calls tumah, and our English Bibles translate as ‘uncleanness’. We all encounter tumah every day. Such is life on planet earth. Something is always growing, and looking for nurture; something is always deteriorating; and our yetzer ha-ra is always looking for something that it can take, consume, manipulate for its own ends, kill, or destroy. Tumah is found in all the ‘biodegrading/garbage eating agents’ of Creation – i.e. bacterium, viruses, snakes, crawling insects, predatory animals and birds, scavengers, bottom-feeders, dogs, cats, pigs, catfish, shellfish etc. – and is found as well in all the ‘natural’ processes that result in death and decay among humans. These prominently include:

1. bad diet [e.g. eating things or consuming quantities of ‘food’, or eating at times, that the Holy One never intended; seeking comfort or pleasure from ‘food’, and]; 
2. substance misuse, abuse, and/or dependence;
3. hyper-sensitivity, sensuality, sentimentality, and sexuality;
4. obsession over appearance;
5. hyper-materialism [e.g. hyper-territoriality, competitiveness, jealousy, envy, and covetousness; deceit, manipulation, occult arts, and witchcraft];
6. racial, national, ethnic, regional, social, or economic pride/prejudice;
7. isolationism/hiding from social interaction;
8. selfishness in relationships:
9. voyeuristic levels of curiosity;
10. pursuit of abstract ideas [i.e. ‘knowledge’, ‘truth’, ‘information’, ‘education’, ‘happiness’, ‘justice’, ‘morality’, ‘fairness’, ‘salvation’, ‘religion’, ‘power’, etc.]
11. slothfulness and leisure-seeking;
12. thrill-seeking and wanderlust;
13. seeking from men respect, honor, fame, glory, tribute, or homage;
14. indulgence of dark energy-fueled feelings and emotions/emotional reactions [e.g. boredom, stress, anxiety, worry, fear, pride, disappointment, discontent, depression, anger, offense, unforgiveness, outrage, etc.];
15. wastefulness/profligacy; 
16. ingratitude;
17. irreverence [lack of fear of the Holy One, and respect of that which He calls ‘holy’];
18. over-valuation of human beings and/or their deeds & ideas [e.g. idolatry, hero worship; and all other forms of humanism]; 
19. closed-handedness toward the poor, the widow, the fatherless, and the foreigner; and
20. lawlessness.

Because we are human, and because we live in a world that is constantly biodegrading, we all have seed beds of tumah all around us. They are in our fleshly appetites, urges, drives, attitudes, moods, opinions, philosophies, ideologies, information sources, and sentiments.  If we do not use the tools the Holy One has given us, in the Torah, to keep it in check, it will invariably [a] adversely affect our minds, hearts, souls, and bodies; [b] attract ‘unclean spirits’; and ultimately [c] turn us into agents of tumah ourselves, who infect people around us with our unique strain of the disease.

4. DOING EVIL [Hebrew: ra], The fourth universal symptom that Moshe identifies with fallen man is that he ‘does evil’. In the Hebrew text the operative phrase used by Moshe to describe this condition is asu et-ha-ra.  It means to build/make/construct a state of calamity. It means to lay the groundwork for epic failure, disaster, and ruin.  In Hebrew thought, you see, ra – which English speakers call ‘evil’ – is not a matter of morality at all. It is just a matter of attitude, thought, speech, or behavior that degrades/acts negatively on whatever it touches, and therefore inevitably lead to what to our flesh feels like trauma or calamity.  If left unchecked, ra will corrupt and destroy whatever – and whoever - it touches. The natural state of man – in the flesh – is to mess up everything. It is the opposite of the ‘Midas touch’ or the ‘healing touch’; it is the ‘Serpent’s touch’ – a kind of bull-in-the-china-shop touch that puts everything and everyone with whom the person comes in contact on a road that – if not course-corrected by Torah – will careen toward destruction, calamity, disaster, and ruin, and

 (Interesting to note: Ra, ie, evil, is the name of the sun god of Egypt, another name for Nimrod, leader of the religion Mystery Babylon, although under a seemingly different name (he has several), which has corrupted Christianity with a mixture of pagan idolatry and harlotry, i.e. christmas which is actually Nimrod's birthday; easter, the goddess Ashtoreth, wife of Ba'al; harvest festival--halloween trick or treating; "Sun"day worship=worship of Ra, the sun god.)

5. PROVOKING THE HOLY ONE  The fifth universal symptom that Moshe identifies with fallen man is that he ‘provokes’ the Holy One. The Hebrew word our English Bibles translate as ‘provoke’ is ka’as – kaf, ayin, samech.  Our English Bibles add the phrase ‘to anger’, but no word for ‘anger’ is present in the Hebrew text. The Hebrew text does not present the Holy One – Who is Eternal, Omniscient and totally confident in His ability to bring good out of every situation – as being ‘angry’. What He does get is ka’as.  That just means displeased.  The Holy One looks at human lives – which He created and cares about – two ways. On the humble and contrite, He looks with FAVOR.  On the rebellious, stiff-necked, calamity-making ones filling the beautiful world He created with corruption He looks with KA’AS - displeasure.  On which of the two groups – those He looks upon with favor, or those He looks upon with ka’as – do you think He will pour out His blessings? On which of those groups do you think He will pour out wisdom and revelation?  On which group, on the other hand, do you think He will He release a series of disciplinary actions designed to bring them to teshuvah (repentance), and give them a chance at redemption?

THESE THINGS ARE WHY WE NEED TORAH!   Torah is our antivirus, the antidote for the plague we are infested with. We can rejoice because we have Y'shua, i.e. Jesus,  Who IS the Torah, the Word of YHVH, the Holy One. He is our way to healing, redemption, and restoration. He FULFILLED the law/Word of YHVH, He didn't get rid of it. The commandments of the Lord reveal His Character which never changes, giving us the proper boundaries for expressing His character through our individual and corporate lives. Torah is the standard of Almighty God throughout all eternity. Without Y'shua and Torah, we have no way to combat the infection resulting from ingesting fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We have no way to combat death, disease, and all types of calamity, nor any way to fulfill the calling and hope for the destiny Adonai has in mind for every one of us. Nor have we any access to redemption and salvation EXCEPT THROUGH HIM. We need Y'SHUA, our Redeemer, and we need TORAH because they are one and the same thing.

May the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit, open our eyes to His Word and His Ways.