Last week, we studied the Psalms and one of our homework assignments was to write a Psalm of our own. I love writing, but I wasn't really sure what to expect. I sat and prayed for a while, and then this is what came out of that.
(There are 150 Psalms, so that's why mine is the 151st. I also really wanted to set it to music like the Psalms were originally written, but it was late at night and I could not get that creative on such short notice.) Psalm 151 A song of Erika. A song of ascent. My soul will rest in you, oh Lord, my God. My spirit wells up with gratitude for your holy name. Sweet honey drips from my lips whenever I sing of your faithfulness. My soul pours out sweet perfume before your throne. I will lift my eyes to your holy hill. To your throne in the heavens, I will raise my hopes. There is nothing in this world that I desire. Nothing made by the hands of man will satisfy my craving. My only hope is in you, God. You are the only one I seek. I stood in the mouth of terror, but my heart did not fail. The jaws of beasts snapped at my heels, yet I was unmoved. Up on your holy mountain, you placed me in safety. High above my enemies and those who would see me stumble and fall. You did not let them have me, God Almighty. You did not surrender me to their evil schemes. For you are my strong tower; my shield in times of distress. You envelop me in your presence and everything else fades away. This one thing I have asked of Adonai, this alone do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of Adonai all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of Adonai and to meditate in His temple. My heart wells up and sings "Baruch haba b’shem Adonai!” "Blessed is He who comes in the name of Adonai!" Let my soul never cease to sing His praises!
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I love the weekends!! Each week, we have an overwhelming amount of homework Monday through Friday, and then we have work duty (working in the campus kitchen) on Saturdays, so Sunday is our blissful day off. <3 Some people like to use this time to go off to the beach or something, but after a long week of mental work and a day of crazy kitchen duty, I prefer to just lay low, spend time in the prayer room, paint, and do other relaxing things. In general, I introvert hard. =) Oh, and I drink lots of tea no matter what temperature it is outside because I'm completely deprived of it during the week - we aren't allowed to bring any food or drink into the classroom, which breaks my heart.
This week was affectionately labelled "tribal week." We studied Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and the Psalms. Our class got split up into tribes and we competed throughout the lectures for points. I was in the tribe of Dan, and unfortunately that meant we were the smallest tribe, but we still won. ^_^ Knowing random Bible trivia pays off! Plus, we got bonus points because our team banner was the best. In all fairness, we had two artists on our team which gave us a significant advantage. Tribal week was fun because we had a lot of interactive competition thrown in, which always makes things more interesting. The material, however, was kind of crazy. We spent the majority of the time wading through Judges, and the stories in that book are nuts! It's pretty such a synopsis of hundreds of years of history before king Saul in which the tribes were disjointed, the people were being oppressed by the Canaanites, and hardly anyone was even following God anymore. It was really interesting to hear the discussions that came out of that and all of the questions we ended up asking our teacher. She did such a great job keeping everything in perspective and staying on track! Ruth and Psalms, on the other hand, were awesome!! I adore the Psalms, and we spent hours reading them. Every single one has such life in it. We color highlight as we go, and that entire section in my study Bible now looks like a skittles factory explosion. <3 I could spend a whole month on the Psalms! Overall, this week's theme for me was really about trusting and following God. I've been praying about what will be next for me after this, and all I keep feeling is peace. I have no idea where I will be in January, but God keeps reassuring me that it will be exactly where I need to be. He speaks to me so much through the Psalms, and they kept being highlighted to me over and over again - trust in the Lord... He will guide your steps... He will not fail you... He is our rock... My heart is so sure that He is watching over me, I'm not even worried about it. God is so worth trusting! And He's been teaching me that trusting Him in faith can actually be fun! Aloha!! It's a hot, humid evening here on the big island of Hawaii as I sit on my bunk working on the pile of homework I have before me. It's bee a solid week and a half here and we've already covered 7 books of the Bible. Philemon, Genesis, Exodus, Job, Leviticus, Hebrews, and now Numbers. That includes reading the whole book out loud, color coding it as we read it, and then going back to write summaries about different topics we found in each book. Not to mention the extra assignments each week.
While it seems like a lot of work - and it is - it is actually very fun! I absolutely love studying the Bible, and it is so wonderful to be surrounded by people who love it and are studying it with me. We have so much fun reading together, discussing what the word says, and then staying up late into the night working on our papers. It's a bonding experience for sure. I am also so blessed simply to be back here in Kona again!! While I may complain about the weather (I love fall, and right now I'm missing it for 90 degree days and being constantly sticky), I truly love this base and so many of the people on it. I have made many good friends already in the school I'm doing, and there are a handful of others who I know from before and who are now involved with other schools around the campus. It is so cool to see God working in their lives!!! But anyways, back to the Bible... Last week was primarily spent on Genesis and Exodus. For just being only two books, there is a lot to unpack in there! I absolutely love these books, so I was very glad to have started with them. I love seeing God's creativity, His desire for relationship, His faithfulness, and His unconditional love. I also love seeing who He chose. From the very beginning, it was wanderers, misfits, un-chosen, and un-special people that He decided to give His blessings to. He sees past our outward qualifications, or usually lack thereof, and calls us out by name. In a few cases, He actually renamed people for who He said they were, not who the world saw them to be. How cool is that?!? That's the God I get to be in relationship with!! <3 A lot of what I ended up highlighting this week was about God’s holiness and His faithfulness. The concept of His holiness is not so much of a new revelation to me as it is a very sweet reminder. I am continually in awe of God’s overwhelming glory, power, and might, and even more so by the fact that that very same God knows and cares about us. “What are people, that you should make so much of us, that you should think of us so often?” (Job 7:17) And that He would speak to us personally, saying “’I know you by name, and I look favorably on you.’” (Exodus 33:12) Just as He spoke that to the patriarch Moses, He speaks it to me today and it moves my heart more than words could ever describe. I am undone by the weight of His love! Beyond a continuing depth of love for God's holiness, I have been struck by His never-ending faithfulness. The entirety of the Torah is a love story written to a bride that simply never understood the depths of His love, yet He never ever quit on them! God says “I will remember my covenant with you.” (Genesis 9:15) “What’s more, I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I promised you.” (Gen 28:15) “I am Adonai, I will free you from your oppression and will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt. I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgment. I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God.” (Exodus 6:6-7) My whole life, these words have rung true for me personally. Every time I studied them, I could feel God’s deep love for Israel and for me. Every time I hear it, it just becomes more true and more a part of how deeply I love Him in return for the immeasurable grace He has poured out on me. So in essence, I love DBS!!! Happy Sukkot! Or as we would say it in Hebrew, Chag Sameach!
This week (last Sunday to this Sunday) has been the Jewish festival of "booths," or tents. It is a time for us to remember the 40 years that the Israelites wandered in the desert. Traditionally, the families would all build a small booth/tent outside and pretty much go camping all week. They sleep and eat outside and spend the time celebrating with each other. It is a time of giving to the poor, inviting friends over for parties, barbecuing, and in general have a good time! It is actually known as "the season of our joy," and for good reason. It is one of my favorite holidays, even though my family doesn't actually camp for the week (I would love to!) There are a lot of traditions around it, and we try to follow it as much as we can. The biggest part being bonfires and barbecues - eating dinner outside as a family and spending time with each other. It's pretty much the best thing ever. I was reflecting on it today since I have missed the last few nights. Someone even build a booth here on campus (in Hawaii) which brought my heart great joy! But no one really uses it. It's kind of business as usual, which is sad but not the end of the world. Anyways, this morning I sat and mulled over the holiday and it's meaning. Even if I can't go out and party with my family each night, I still want to appreciate the heart behind this very important season. Sukkot is the remembrance of Israel's wandering. They had rejected the promised land and refused to stand on God's promise, so He banished them to stay in the desert until the entire wicked generation died and the nation could try again with a fresh start. It was a time of trial and of dryness. People often use the term "desert season" to describe a time of testing or feeling directionless, and this is definitely where that term gets its meaning. That is why it is so interesting to me that it is celebrated as Israel's most joyous holiday. Instead of this being a time of mourning or solemn contemplation, it is a time of feasting and generosity. Of appreciating the bounty God has given us and the relationships that bring us together. Initially, this may appear to be an odd contradiction, but the more I prayed the more God showed me just how in line it is with His heart. God was not needlessly punishing Israel by sending them back out into the desert. He was disciplining them because He loved them as dearly beloved children. (Pr 3:12) He wanted them to grow and trust Him and He wanted to give them a second chance. I think it is so interesting how similar the words 'disciple' and 'discipline' are. They come from the same root word and have largely the same meaning, yet I feel like we tend to have vastly different responses to the two. The disciples were those who got to walk and talk with Jesus - they gave up everything to follow His teaching and emulate him. They are honored and looked up to, but I don't think we grasp what that discipleship looked like in the day to day. While 'disciple' is looked up to, I know many people (including myself) have cringed internally at the mention of 'discipline.' Discipline is often paralleled with punishment, which nobody likes, but I think it's more than that. Discipline is how we go about being disciples. We submit to God as our father as we desire Him to shape us into His image, and that often comes in the form of smoothing out our rough edges and teaching us that His ways really are better than ours. This sometimes painful and irritating process is known as discipline, and for the Israelite it came in the form of a nation wide reboot - letting another generation try again. Even though the process is undoubtedly painful, I think the joy of the season is a valuable lesson that it is still something to be celebrated. The end result is what God is looking for and what we should be anticipating. I know for myself that that is much easier said than done, which is why it is excellent to have such a reminder in my life. Celebrating Sukkot isn't just a traditional BBQ, it's a cultural reminder of what God had to do to bring us into His promised land and that it was all worth it. That our good came out of it, and that is worth celebrating wholeheartedly. In my own life, I have just transitioned from living and working in California to being welcomed back into the community here at YWAM. I would not consider life at home to be my desert, but it is also admittedly much drier, and forced me to come to terms with a lot of hard lessons. I did feel directionless a lot of the time, and didn't always have much of a community around me to lean on. I am now rejoicing to be back in my second home, the place where I have already been given so much from God and where He has planted my heart for some unknown reason. I am still directionless in some ways, but at the same time I know I have heard God's voice in calling me back here and have heeded it. I have stepped out and crossed the line into His leading, and I can rejoice in knowing that He is bringing me into even more alignment with His heart. Whether it be through trial or blessing, I know that it is all with my best in His heart that God does anything. |
ErikaJeremiah 29:11 Archives
March 2023
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