“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Philippians 3:10-11
I believe our heartaches, hardships, and even profound loneliness can take us through a door of intimate communion with Christ. Our deepest encounters often happen not on the mountaintop but in valleys.
This entryway isn’t experienced in our days of ease but found in dryness where Yashua enters the darkness for you.
There’s no darkness in which he hasn’t gone.
There’s no darkness he won’t meet you in.
There’s no darkness that can hide him.
There’s no darkness he won’t, in time, lead you out of.
He’s a good companion. Your closest friend! :)
The word companion—a synonym for friend—literally means “one who shares bread with you.” In that light, it’s telling that Yashua, both to commemorate his death and to anticipate his resurrection, shared bread with his friends. He companioned with them at a very dark moment.
Soon after, at the darkest hour, Yashua was separated from his Father. He was plunged into the anguish of complete abandonment. “My God, my God,” he cried. “Why have you forsaken me?” For a time, darkness was his closest friend. Take the bread. Hear his words, “This is my body, broken for you.” Take the cup. Hear him say, “This is my blood, poured out for you, for the forgiveness of sins.” Proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes, until that day you see him face to face and sit in the dazzling brightness of his presence.
Try this today… you can do this alone, or with a friend or two. Prepare and receive communion as an act of companionship with Jesus. Drink the cup, eat the bread, with a mindfulness that Yashua shared bread with his friends, including one who would betrayed him.
If you’re communing with Yashua or just coming into this….by all means enjoy it. Don’t squander it.
Take your time to look closely at your life. Where do you need to join Yashua in this season of renewal. Then take your plow blade to all the hard earth, open it wide, and harrow it until it’s soft. Work the plow every chance you get until your dry land turns to a flourishing garden.
And remembering the whole time you aren’t alone. It’s impossible to work the plow alone without God’s fertile seed [Word of God] and living water [Holy Spirit]. Both are required to build habits in attentiveness and responsiveness—hearing and doing the will of God.
Our habits with Yashua make our soil of our lives into a fertile softness so that when seed falls, it is taken deep, into our root system to flourish … more fruit, abundantly. Hallelujah!
I hope you can see the portrait of humility here as it is blossoms into confidence! Once we are confident, we gain a deep knowledge of the dancing with Yashua and a wild hunger for more becomes our daily life.
I marvel when I think about where I started… I want to encourage you to Start today. Make a decision right now to see fruit budding from your soil and before you know it what seemed hard and dead as stone not too long ago will become fierce resolve of companionship with Yashua. Praise YAH!
Activation:
One example that I borrowed while learning to be a friend of YAH, comes from an ancient prayer practice called the examen. The examen is a form of personal inventory.
At day’s end, spend time in prayerful reflection on your day: your comings and goings, routines and disruptions, work and play, discoveries and disappointments. Then, take some time to think about who you met, or missed. Think about your moments of aloneness.
In all, ask two questions: when was I most alive, most present, most filled and fulfilled today? And when was I most taxed, stressed, distracted, depleted today?
My simpler version of those questions: when did I feel closest to God, and when farthest?
As you do this… a pattern will emerge over the course of several examens. (It will be helpful to keep a journal.) From the pattern will emerge a portrait. This portrait will be of you!
It will reveal to you your own heart, its passions and quirks and aversions. Where it leaps, where it sinks, where it feels safe or imperiled, where it just beats in steady contented rhythm.
Few of us get to shape our lives to suit ourselves, not entirely at least, and I’m not suggesting that anyhow. I am suggesting that most of our lives are cluttered and need to be pared back and reorganized.
I use the examen to sort myself out in that way. What sort of things need to be reordered, gathered and dispersing. In short, to spring-clean my Status Quo Bias… a topic for another post-!
Here’s how it works. The examen points out my spiritual and emotional rhythms, it helped me live with greater focus and effectiveness.
I was able to see the clutter to remove it.
I was able to distinguish the habitual from the purposeful, mere busyness from real productiveness.
I separate actions that are fruitful from those that are fruitless, ways of thinking that are self-generating from those that are self-defeating, relationships that are life-giving from those that are life-sucking.
And then I rearrange or rebuild areas so my garden flourishes and operates out of strength and joy. It doesn’t mean I avoid hard things or difficult people. It means I’m more likely to partner with Yashua to deal with such things and such people from a place of wisdom, grace, clarity, and peace.
This is to say our souls, our hearts have seasons. The seasons of the heart are no respecters of age, and seldom of person. It’s time to know what season we are in. Ask, seek & Praise Yashua
