Clothed in Gladness

Psalm 30: 11-12 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, to the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.

It's cold and flu season. I got the cold. Therefore I was not at church yesterday, but got to stay home and listen to David Jeremiah, and he went here...and I heard a message of the ups and downs of life. I have been on that roller coaster this season of my life. So excited about some things, and so distressed and let down about others. And what is worse, the things you think will be good end up being the biggest downs around...like the world's greatest daughter-in-law who asks for the divorce...like the remodel making you sick, like the job you love giving you nightmares. In the case of David, it was bringing the ark back to Jerusalem, not following the directions, and having a death on his hands. He was devastated. He sent the ark away, only to bring it back a while later when the family who housed it was blessed, not cursed, by it. He had seen God all wrong. He hadn't followed the law that brings life and God's approval and got the result...death and God's disapproval, and wondered why. Isn't that like us? We do our own thing totally disregarding what the scriptures say concerning it, and then wonder why we are in a mess of our own making, and then we blame God. I see it in my life, and in the lives of those around me and would laugh if it weren't so tragic. And of course, it is easier to see in the lives of those around us than to fess up to our own self-made sewers.

But GOD.

HE shows Himself faithful. HE shows Himself GOOD. He does not delight in sacrifices and death and pain and suffering. He uses them when He has to. If the godly man can get away with breaking the law, what hope is there to redeem the truly sinful at heart? God has to show Himself HOLY, and that irks us to no end. We like Him to be more tolerant, more understanding, more accepting. And HE IS. He just can't tolerate sin. He paid for it with a horrible cost, but didn't let it fester forever.

And the Psalm says that HE changes us when He shows us Himself. When we see the error of our ways, He changes our mourning into praise, and changes our clothes from those of mourning into clothes of gladness. I would love to see these “glad rags.” For David they were linen, but for us, I wonder what color “glad” is...

Is glad red, the color of the saving blood?

Yellow, the color of the Sun who saved us?

Orange, the color of health and wealth?

Green, the color of life?

Blues, the color of sky and sapphires and royalty?

Purple, the color of kings?

When I am down, I feel like the feeling will never end. That is called depression...when there is no hope of things ever being better. What could possibly make me laugh again, to smile, to even want to get out of bed. And there are some issues that make us that sullen. We know that feelings come and go, that most depression will leave us after a time just because we cannot live there forever. Those who can't come out of that place over time become a shell of their former selves. But God is the one who can refocus our minds, give us hope that even when we feel like we are going through hell that heaven waits on the other side. And when we find ourselves looking back with just the twinge of sadness instead of the despair, we can come to God with dancing, with praises on our lips because He has brought us out. We find ourselves out, not by our own devices, because we would stay under the covers all day, but because He brings us out and shows us that it is not the end, but often the beginning. He works in our hearts to trust Him, and when we accept that He is God and we are not, He puts the praises in our mouths, often to our great surprise. We may seem mad, crazy, and totally out of our minds to others to praise God in or after the storm, but many find themselves there, patient at the feet of the Lord, praising Him for bringing us through. Others refuse that grace and suffer bitterness that brews and stews into a rancid pot of hatred. Those without grace and God will be there. But those who trust and praise on the other end of mourning will praise forever...that is a promise of being in His presence for all eternity, where there is no more mourning or tears...all the sorrow will be wiped away.

And there will be DANCING! That I really want to see and do! That's the only “getting down” we will have...no more DOWNS. Until then, praise Him for bringing you through them.

Moths and Rust

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is, your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-21

I have a moth problem. They have taken over the kitchen, and since then, the house. Everywhere I go I see them hanging in the air. They are fairly easy to kill as they move pretty slowly. But they get into everything! Every bag, box, and even basket seems to have webs and moths all over them. The panic set in when I saw them upstairs near my closets. They are even cedar-lined and have moth balls in them. The moth balls seemed to have kept the mice off the counters, but the moths are still in the cupboard even with a whole box of moth balls fumigating it! I have put all food out of plastic bags with twist ties and into air-tight containers so the food isn't ruined again.

So what's the problem?

Wool. Wool jackets and wool for crafting. They lay eggs in it and the larvae eat the wool. And that makes holes. And holey wool destroys the garment. And considering the cost of a new suit jacket, that is one expensive moth!

And if it is that hard for me to control these critters, imagine living in a culture where wool was standard fare. Once you are infested, it is hard to get rid of them. And lots of stuff is ruined. Patches would declare that you have been gotten. The eggs get into everything. I have read that you should put your wool in freezing temperatures for quite a while to kill the eggs and stop the madness. I need to try that if I keep finding them by the garments instead of just down by the kitchen.

I look around me and see the effects of time on about everything I own. Things once new and prized are now faded, torn, water-damaged, worn out, raveling, splitting and drying out. Fabric, counters and cabinets, cars, pictures, wood finishes, carpets, and skin and hair all show the ravages of time, use, and abuse. Archivists spend thousands of dollars a year preserving everything from buildings to books, pictures to textiles. This life and everything in it runs on the destruction principle. The 2^nd law of thermodynamics interpreted by the layman is that everything tends toward chaos. Things fall apart on their own, they do not build on their own. A pile of wood doesn't build a house over time, but a house left unattended will eventually become nothing more than a pile of wood, and that will even dissolve into the dirt. And if anything survives this world, it will burn at the end of the world, so nothing of this life will last. The earth itself will be replaced with all its contents.

So the things we treasure here are goners, sad but true. But we have the promise that we can take something with us...we can store up treasures in heaven. It's not all useless and futile down here, because here is the temporary and there is eternal. We are given permission, even commanded, to store up stuff for ourselves, just not here. And how do we do that?

These are spiritual gifts, treasuring Jesus above all, treasuring the lives of others and taking them with us to the best place, and treasuring our time and talents to promote the kingdom and build into the lives of others, as well as our own souls. Treasuring the Word tells us what is really valuable, and if it is valuable in the eyes of God, it should be valuable to us, too. Reading Proverbs we learn wisdom, and with that wisdom spiritual insight and practical knowledge of how to live this life. We are told that what we give God here, He will repay many-fold there. People say you can't outgive God, and then expect Him to grant us favors on this side of eternity. I'll take mine there, thank you.

How many things have I bought thinking they were valuable to me at the time, and they end up pretty much worthless. You can buy most of what I own at a garage sale pretty cheaply. But God knows what will have eternal value, that will delight my heart forever and not just until the styles change. I will trust Him to decorate my eternal home and it will be a great deal happier with it than my current remodel. I also am in the midst of chaos here as they make lights work that haven't for years, a bathroom is getting gutted that also hasn't functioned for over a decade. I can sort of envision the results, but not really. I know what I like when I see it, but knowing what is going to look good ahead of time is not my forte. I will know if I like it once it is done and it's too late to change it. But God knows the exact placement of the pictures on the wall, the style of the furniture, and the color of the carpeting in my eternal home, and that it will reflect 2 things, what I sent ahead for Him to work with, and what will delight my heart.

And if you don't know what won't be in heaven besides sin, I can think of 2 things: moths and rust.

Covered with a cloudy curtain

He spread a cloud for a covering (curtain). Psalm 105:39

It has been a year since I started this study on fabric, garments, cloth, veils, and other coverings in scripture. I find it amazing that in all of these posts, we have only scratched the surface of these references.

It really is awe-inspiring that God gives us consistent messages in the Bible. As I have gone through the various books and passages, I could do studies on all kinds of topics. Food is one that I see all sorts of references to throughout. Feet was a short study. You could study love, peace, war, bread, enemies, babies, life, spirits, or all kinds of things. I would encourage you to take any topic that you love, or things that weigh on your hearts or minds, and dig in. Scan books for words that pertain to that topic. With all the reference materials online, you can search topics, words, or passages. I google various parts of verses that I can't remember the location of to find them online.

And, like this topic, there will be both sides of the coin, or curtain, in this reference in Psalms. Here we learn of the cloud that lead the Israelites and the fire that lead them by night. I always thought of a little cloud, bright and shiny, that went ahead of them. I guess I was wrong. This cloud covered over them. We tend to think about being under a cloud being a bad thing, but they were wandering in the desert, and this cloud will not only lead them, but protect them from the harsh sun, the glaring rays of heat. Like a curtain on a window keeps out the view of what is going on inside, the enemies could not get in and see what was going on. There was God's protection with them wherever they went. The curtain would later separate them from God, and to an extent it did. It was not a part of them, but hung over them. But He was the curtain, the cloud that was with them. They had not known Him for a few hundred years, to their shame, and He had to show them who He was both day and night in different forms, and that He was indeed on their side. But He was still there. He was their God, but He wasn't just any god that they had known in Egypt. He was their protection, even during their captivity. He preserved them as a people. And He could also destroy them when they chose to argue with Him. He is both merciful and holy, life and death, commanding and tender-hearted. The subject of coverings and fabrics has been encouraging and comforting, rebuking and scolding. There was talk of life and death, beauty and rot, cleansing and filth. It has been a ride that I did not expect, and will continue.

I hope you continue to go through this study with me, but even more so that you do your own on whatever topic God puts on your heart.

Then start your own blog and share it with me.

I did not start blogging these because I am some sort of super student of the Word. I am NOTHING special. I just saw the things God was showing me and couldn't keep them to myself. And the following is small, and that's fine. If nothing else, it proves that God is talking to me about these things, and not the rest of the world, and that's ok. I need this. I need a reason and direction to do more than just read the Word, but to reflect on it, to meditate, to find more scriptures on these topics. I can't seem to avoid finding more passages on cloth and covering. And may the journey continue until the references run out and I have to change topics.