A Prophet's clothes Zechariah 13

No one will be boasting then of a prophetic gift! No one will wear prophet's clothes to try to fool the people. Zechariah 13:4

There have always been false prophets. I can't tell you how many people predicted the second coming happening before the turn of the millennium when I was a child...how many called for economic doom and gloom by certain dates and times...how many named Gorbachev or others as the anti-Christ. It is no small thing to speak for God as a prophet, and not be a prophet from God! The verse before this one states that those who would prophesy lies in the name of the Lord should be stabbed by their parents! Other passages say that false prophets should be stoned. Those who don't have their predictions come true are not to be feared...we have touched on that in a previous post.

But who should wear a prophet's clothes? And why?

Most of those who prophecy in this day and age do it for 3 reasons: power, money, or panic. How many tv preachers do we see, how many mega churches or cults raise up because men are power hungry? We watch people follow these men to the grave because they bewitch them into thinking they are the only ones who hear from God. They distort the scriptures, call themselves Christians when Christ is NO PART of their lives, and get their psyches fed by having control over people. They will be cursed of God.

Then there are those who seek to profit from being a prophet. I will tell you fearful things, and you will send me money so I can continue to tell you fearful things...or promise you blessings of God because you support me and my ministry. I have seen few instances in scripture where prophets were worshiped and adored by the masses. Few had money, and many were tortured for their faith and words. If a large following of people is being promised ANYTHING besides hearing the Word of the Lord, you can bet the motives of the speaker are not pure. Not that men of God can't have a ministry following...but if it is not based on the feeding of the flock from the Word itself in Spirit and in Truth, RUN LIKE THE WIND in the other direction! God does not bless such a one with His Word. He knows their hearts are full of greed and desire to make a living, not a life, off the gospel.

Panic and fear usually send men into a tizzy. The worst case scenarios that fly around are amazing to me. God lets us know that He is coming back, that there will be crazy things like marks, signs, and wars, etc., but until they happen, we can't put dates and times on them. Christ Himself said He didn't know when these things would come to pass, but to be ready. For 2 millennium people have lived thinking their generation wouldn't make it through. The signs are closer...Israel exists again, the means to get the gospel to every nation exists now more than any other time, but for me to say it's going to happen in my lifetime is presumptuous. We just know we are one day closer, and the signs are coming faster than we care to imagine some days, but it could still be centuries before the second coming. But the call to be ready, to be on our guards against the false teachers of the day, to live pure and holy lives dedicated to God and lived through His Spirit never cease. That we can count on, and the panic of man will not change God's timeline.

There is a LOT of debate going on now about “Strange Fire” and other issues of teachers of the Word (or not) making stuff up or misinterpreting scriptures and therefore prophesying falsely. We MUST be careful to study the scriptures in light of the teachings of ANY man, seemingly reputable or not. Any preacher that doesn't call us to be Bereans and search the scriptures to see if these things are so should not be given a hearing. Any one scripture can be distorted into a LIE. Jesus scolded and condemned the Pharasees because “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about ME, and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you many have life.” John 5:39-40 If the teachings of any man do not point us to life in Christ, they are a false prophet. Keeping the law, even the rules of the New Testament, are not the point of salvation...the blood of Christ is. So any man can use the Scriptures and still be a false prophet. All of the Scriptures hold together, and if we do not look at them as a whole that point to the Savior, we can deceive and be deceived.

The call of God on a man to be a prophet is HIS call, not our desire to be one. Those who most desire this gift are most likely the ones who shouldn't have it...and those who He tended to call were those who wanted no part of it (see Moses, Jeremiah, and others who said WHO AM I to do this?). So beware of those who don a prophet's clothes...for your own soul's sake. Watch carefully any man's life, his ideas, and his use of the scriptures. If they don't line up, just turn around and run. Read the Word yourself, hear those who stick with the gospel of Christ, and don't heed new “revelations” that some speaker claims God gave him. When in doubt, read Galatians over and over and over. And 2 Peter. God loves you too much to let you be deceived. Stand on the truth of Scripture and don't try to make it say what it doesn't. And God will guard your heart.

Changing from our mourning clothes

So David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” And they said, “He is dead.” So David arose from the ground, washed, anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he came into the the house of the Lord and worshiped. 2 Samuel 12:19b-20A.

Tears come to my eyes whenever I read or hear this passage. It is the story of human tragedy. David and Bathsheba lose the child they have born because of the sins of adultery and murder. This passage was read yesterday morning by David Jeremiah in his sermon on heaven, and children going there. It is a blessing, really, to know that God has mercy on that child...but it is also heart-rending to know that God LOVED David, and still took severe measures to sanctify him. This was not the only time people died for David's sin. The census cost them thousands of people. Going to the temple for refuge cost the priests their lives (though that one was not a sin). His sons killed many, including each other, because he didn't see the problems they had or deal with them. We are sinners, and the woes of this world are brought on by the hundreds of sins we all perform, think, or contemplate daily times 6 billion. Sin is an awful thing, and we truly in our heart of hearts wish God would just overlook it. We do a David. When we recognize it when confronted by our Nathans, we get mad, then get sad, and then fear for our lives or the lives of those we love. Am I an unusual parent? Does anyone else out their watch their children (small or grown) sin and wonder just how much we contributed to it? Are they suffering because I set a bad example? Is God taking His wrath out on me or them by letting us fall flat on our faces? Was there a sin I could have confessed, a prayer I could have prayed, a fast I could have taken, that would have removed the consequences of our sin? Our brokenness makes us vulnerable to the attacks of Satan. We really don't know sometimes what we suffer because of our own sin, the sin of others, or the love or righteousness of God. We can torture ourselves over these things. Sometimes it is plain...as in this instance with David.

David fasted for a week, laid on the ground, and pleaded with God for the child. His servants begged him to get up, to eat, to wash, to do SOMETHING other than lay there. They thought he was suicidal! But he knew his sin, and he knew he deserved it, but he didn't want the consequences to be placed on the baby. And for all practical purposes, though the baby died, he came out best in this whole scenario. Unlike his brothers, he would never sin, not be slain by his brothers, not hate of his father or turn against God to idols. But we grieve for that child. Innocent himself, but the result of much guilt. How do we handle these things?

We pray. We weep. We fast. We mourn.

And we trust God.

SAY WHAT?

David knew that God was God. It is a hard place for us to be, and we fight that with all our humanness. We think God has made some sort of mistake when trials come, when consequences mount, and results of our sin come in. There have been instances with each of my children where I marvel at God's goodness one minute and wonder if He will smite them the next. When I finally learned that my sin was wretched enough as it was, the sins of my children seemed to compound it, to multiply the awfulness of it. I didn't want them to lie, cheat, steal, drink, party, or abandon the God who loves them. But at some point these things have happened...some when they were young and dumb, and some when they were willful and rebellious, or reacting to the sinfulness of their parents. Sometimes they have repented, and sometimes they have continued on, but God knows what He wants to work in their lives. When I wonder what is taking so long for people to turn from their sin, I only need to look at my own heart, and the answer is obvious...we don't see it for what it is. We justify, we make excuses and blame, we tell God He expects too much. We let Satan whisper sweet nothings in our ear and are drawn away from the one who will cleanse us, open our eyes and hearts, and give us more joy than we can hold, if only we didn't fight Him.

David knew and trusted God. He changed his clothes from mourning and pleading to those of worship, even in the case of death. Maybe God would change His mind, he thought. And when He didn't, he worshiped, knowing that God was right in His judgments. He got on with life, humbled, corrected, and in awe of the God who loved him. He entrusted that babe into the arms of a loving, but just, God.

And so must we. We plead for our kids, our churches, our world because we see the consequences of sin in each of them. We should never stop pleading, but when the end comes and no more can be done, we put ourselves and those we love into the hand of the merciful Savior. It's our human place for now. But NOT forever. And for that we can also be ETERNALLY GRATEFUL! As David knew, “I will go to him (the child), but he will not return to me.” The end will be good, though the pain is real for now.

From sackcloth to joy...through the bitter day

I will turn your festivals into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on everyone's loins and baldness on every head. And I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and the end of it will be like a bitter day. Amos 8:10

Well, it's been a while, but here we go. And not exactly where I wanted to go, but here we are.

Since the last post we are at a stand-off with Russia post-Olympics, with Crimea being overtaken. The thoughts of war breaking out are real. And I have an only son whose wife has left him and filed for divorce, and the mourning in my heart several times a day for him, and for her, as she has not left only him, but the church and all Christian friends, is severe. Life is tense right now for me. And yet I look to the Lord, from whence comes my help.

Amos watched the people of Israel live as if there was no God. They lived self-centered lives, didn't take God's Word seriously, and worshiped earthly things. It sounds like America these days. I picture the selfie taken at the Oscars...rich, arrogant people making tv programs and movies that feed the flesh and lead generations into feeling relaxed in the presence of sin. There is no mourning over the presence of sin, the absence of godliness, and no fear of God's judgment to come for ignoring Him. Even Lot was troubled in his righteous soul by the activity of the people around him in Sodom and Gomorrah.

2 Peter 2. It is when we are not tormented in our souls over the sin that swirls around us that we should worry about our own spiritual state. It is one thing to love the sinners around us...it is another altogether to accept the sin they participate in as “normal” or “acceptable”.

I used to wonder about the verse that says, Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight! Who to those who are heroes in drinking wine and valiant men in mixing strong drink. Who justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away the rights of the ones who are in the right!”” Isaiah 5:20-23 Doesn't it seem that people would rather have good, light, and sweet than evil, darkness, and bitter? But it has happened. We look at marriage, and church, and God, and sexual purity, and hard work, and generosity, and fiscal restraint, all deemed GOOD in my childhood, and they are all mocked, distorted, and legislated against by a generation that has substituted evil...sexual obsession, adultery, homosexuality, free lunch, leisure, cursing, and gimme, gimme...and then try to legislate their way out of the consequences of such behavior. STDs, suicide, poverty (not all in poverty cause their poverty, but in our country, having kids out of wedlock, divorce, and welfare have created an unnecessary lifestyle of poverty), family break-down, and drug use and drinking binges...the bitter, have taken over our society. We were warned in the verses above that the result of God's hand will be a bitter day. Amos tells us in the following verses that there will be a drought of hearing the Word of the Lord. It is all around us, but few hear. There is much distortion of the Word, and few who will stand up for God's holiness and coddle those in sin instead of correcting them, for fear of appearing judgmental. All because we are redefining sin and God and good and evil.

I do mourn for my son, for my children living in a world turned upside down, and for my country that was not this way a couple of generations ago. It is hard for this generation to picture anything else, but my generation sees the downhill slide and sees the crash that is coming. God will not hold his hand forever. Scary stuff.

Fortunately, God never leaves us. The judgment will come, but so will the redemption. The can may get drunk dry, but the can itself gets redeemed...the nickel is paid, so to speak, to get it back, melt it down, and make something new of it. God does that with we cans...we may spill out good or evil, but we are redeemed by the blood of Christ, as we are worth more than a nickel, and only He can pay the worth that God puts on our souls. We are promised to be placed forever in His kingdom, rebuilt in such a way that we will never pour all of our contents out again, except in praise and adoration for the one who bought us back and didn't just send us to the landfill or ditch us on a roadside. We may go through times of extreme trial, pain, and rejection, but the Lord will redeem and restore the years that “the locusts have eaten.” I don't know who or what your locusts are, but God does. Placing ourselves in His hands, we can trust that only good will come from all that we live through. (Romans 8:28) New festivals of joy and celebration will happen in the place of praise. No matter where we start in scripture, the end is that every knee will bow to the Son, and those who love Him will live on in joy. And there lies my hope, and I hope, yours.

Garments of cursing

 But he clothed himself with cursing as with his garment, and it entered into his body like water and like oil into his bones. Let it be to him as a garment with which he covers himself, and for a belt with which he constantly girds himself. Let this be the reward of my accusers from the Lord, and of those who speak evil against my soul. Psalm 109:18-20

Blessing and cursing...we do one or the other with every word we speak. For some, sweetness pours off their lips, revealing their sweet spirit. And then there are the rest of us. Blessing does not come naturally to this soul. Those of us with the spiritual gift of prophesy...NO, I am not a fortune teller, but a prophet, one who warns...we speak warning words that can oppress when they come from us and not from God. It is easier for me to see what is wrong and want it fixed than it is to see what is right and acceptable and praise and cheer and reward. But I do try not to curse others. There are a precious few people in life that I see as truly evil and wish the lightning bolt of God's judgment would fall on them as an example to others that they are NOT the do-gooders that they deceive people into thinking they are, but God has taught me that cursing solves nothing and reveals a bitter spirit in me that is just as bad as the evil spirit in them.

Cursing...if you have ever been cursed by another person, it is the most devastating, demoralizing thing you can go through. I don't mean just having them spew vile words in your presence. I mean having them tell you off in a way that doesn't just reveal to you that you let them down in some way, which might very well be true. You did let them down. You did not be what they expected. You failed to come through on a promise or attempt at something on their behalf. Or you did nothing at all but believe something differently than them, and they not only tell you that you were wrong, but that you are the worst person on the planet, that your motives were evil, that there is nothing you can do to make it right, and that you are worthless. I can handle being told I am wrong. (Sometimes it takes a few minutes to see that I AM wrong, but then when I see it, I am ok with being corrected.) It's the attributing of evil motives that I cannot handle. The refusing to see that though the results were wrong, the attempt was good or at the least, harmless. This person attacking David refused to bless, refused to see any good in him. He was soooo wrapped up in cursing David that that is how David envisioned him, wrapped in garments of cursing. No good thing could come out of his mouth. He put on curses and accusations and verses before say that this ungodly man LOVED cursing people. He loved gossip and rumor and outright verbal abuse.

We all know the type. And at times I can be the type. Nothing is right, no one is good enough, and people see the garment of cursing on me and avoid me. I don't blame them. I start listening to what is coming out of my pie hole and panic, and then pray. I pray for sweet words. I pray for a new attitude of gratefulness and graciousness. There are times when it is ok to analyse and scrutinize, but it is never ok to curse. Learning to be a blessing even in correction is a hard lesson to learn. I want to shed the clothing of cursing. I want to bless, even in the midst of seeing the need for change. That takes PLEADING with God to change my insides to sweet water, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. How often the waters are bitter, revealing my bitter soul. It is time to change clothes and realize that people see the clothes we are wearing, be they of blessing or cursing. To have them hanging on you is one thing, but to tie the belt on, to intentionally gird yourself in cursing clothes shows that we have dug our heals in and feel justified in our bad attitudes toward people and the God who sends them into our lives. Shimei cursed David and David accepted that as from the Lord. He let God humble him through that experience. We hate being humbled. We hate letting the cursing person look like they have something on us. What Shimei said was not necessarily untrue. David hadn't always been a good leader and had plenty of faults, but the public humiliation was an attack on his character, not concern for his soul, or he would have made a private appeal instead of a public scene. That is the difference. Cursing is a public and personal form of humiliation rather than a private confrontation of perceived problems. Having been on the receiving end of a few rants against my character and conduct, I pray that I will delve into the reality of the situation and not always trust that the perceptions I have are right and true. I learn the older I get that things aren't always as they seem. I try to give the benefit of the doubt to someone that their intentions are good until they make it clear that they are just as bad as I had wondered. And then I try to beg God's mercy on them as I ponder the evilness of my own heart. I am as misguided, prideful, and self-absorbed as anyone. I just pray that cursing would not be the default mode. God is the only one who can truly curse someone, and the results of that are just downright scary. We really shouldn't wish that on our worst enemy. But we are not God, don't know what is really at the heart of a man's anger, and cannot be the final judge of their lives. To curse them is to take on that role that we are not given by God. Like David, we give these people to God, knowing that others can see how they have dressed themselves. They aren't fooling anyone when they are dressed the part of the curser.

So cloth yourself with blessing. It's a better look on you! Garments of cursing should be burned. Don't even try to pass them on to Goodwill. They are too ugly for anyone to wear, and the fabric is too rotted to salvage. Send them to hell where they belong.

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.