Crushed and Blessed

It was a profound weekend in the Spirit. Several images from my time of worship and also of sighting the New Moon will remain with me a long time.

In worship a group of women known as "Hands of Praise" come forward and do sign language to the words of worship songs. They are all dressed in black, which takes attention away from everything except their beautiful, expressive hands, offering worship to the King. As I looked into their faces, though, I noticed that two of them were radiating such joy that it took my breath away; and then I realized that I knew something about these two particular women. One of them lost her home and everything she owned in the Windsor tornado a little over a year ago. Not only did she lose everything, but in the week that followed, her mother died. It was a week of unspeakable tragedy in that family. But oh, the wellspring of joy on her face as she worshiped her King! The other woman came to death's door last year and defeated it. She developed an infection that nearly shut down her kidneys and doctors gave her little hope. But Yeshua had other plans for this beautiful young woman, and as I watched her hands signing the words, "I'm forgiven because You were forsaken; I'm accepted, You were condemned. I'm alive and well, Your Spirit is within me, because You died and rose again" I saw the evidence of her miracle all over her, and something became very clear to me once again. We who have suffered much are loved much! We who have been crushed - like the oil being pressed out of the olive - are anointed with His Light! The crushing is the oil of the anointing. What a blessing!

Then last night I made my way out to the Seven Lakes Park in Loveland, Colorado, and trudged through thick, high clumps of reeds, amidst swarms of mosquitoes, down to the bank of a lake where about twenty of us gathered to await the sighting of the New Moon. I thought how strange we must look to the world! There was just nothing more important to this odd little band of people than to watch to see what the Father is doing! And sure enough, two days after the Hebrew calendar said it would be Yom Teruah (Feast of Trumpets) the tiny sliver of the New Moon broke through a window just above the waning rays of sunlight, and just below a bank of deep blue clouds. It was hard to spot! We had to squint and stare until finally one of the men shouted enthusiastically, "There it is! Blow the shofars!" As we all began to spot that first tiny crescent, we blew our shofars with great joy, announcing the beginning of the Feast. It was a spectacular sight: the rays of the setting sun formed a literal crown around the moon, refelected in the water below. With great joy I thought of this Day in the future when the Feast of Trumpets will at last be fulfilled and the 7th trumpet will sound, heralding the Return of the Messiah in power and glory!

Father is teaching us that no longer can we rely on ANY of man's calendars to know what He is doing - certainly not the Roman calendar, and now not even the Hebrew calendar! If we want to know when the 1st day of the 7th Hebrew month will be so that we can blow the trumpets and welcome back the King, we must do as Yeshua did: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does." (John 5:19)

Yes, it was a profound weekend in the Spirit. The crushed, the suffering, the dying raised to life, and the peculiar little band of people on the lakeshore looking for the new moon all have something in common. They live in this world, but they are not OF this world. They are joyfully serving and living for the KING who is not of this world, but of the world to come!