JEALOUSY's Response

I’ve set out on a course of reading through the Bible this year, and today found me wrapped, again, in the words of Moses. At times, stepping back into an age so different from my own life appears pointless...meaningless...irrelevant. Yet wading through the Law makes me so appreciative of grace. The Law ... that shadow of what was to come ... begins to reveal glimpses into Jesus and into the heart of God that He represents in the flesh. And gratitude grows as a by-product of this journey.

Today, looking at the law regarding a man’s jealousy or suspicion of his wife’s unfaithfulness, several thoughts struck me from Numbers 5. My mind immediately went to Mary and Joseph....individually. Joseph’s tremendous steps of “faith-walking” floored me anew.
How easily, as the child within Mary grew, Joseph could have lapsed, understandably into “sight-walking.” The options open to him legally were always there, dogging his steps with every whisper that met his ears, even the whispers in the dark of the night that certainly visited his dreams.

And knowing human nature, and the enemy of our soul’s ultimate goal, I know the whispers didn’t stop when Jesus was born. They lingered ... throughout the remainder of Joseph’s days ... nipping at his heels ... snarling their accusations in his moments of weakness ...
Yet Joseph remained faithful to the word spoken him by a true messenger of light.
Sometimes, it seems, we forget to remember Joseph...his journey....the seasons of his faith. Reading these words today brought him to my heart in a new way. I ached with him. I trusted with him. I walked a love with him I had not ever really visited before. And I rejoiced with him, when standing before a heavenly throne his faith became sight, at last.

And Mary. That young, innocent, teenaged girl. Today’s reading allowed me to glean an even deeper understanding of what was being asked of her. Our world was not hers. Death and barrenness scored the pages of her world ... all it took was suspicion ... a moment of jealousy. What faith rings in her declaration, “Let it be to me according to your word.” She had no assurance apart from trusting God. Yet she rested there.

Which brings me to the last thought this passage evoked in my heart. The reality of how far from Mary, how far from Joseph my faith lies. My husband (God) is a jealous husband. Jealous for me. He knows my inward ways, my inward thoughts, my wandering heart. Unfaithfulness is part of the constitution of this clay making up my being. Always wandering after other lovers ... forgetting my Beloved.

Yet His love, rather than exposing me to the enemy, embraces me with a covering of grace ... a bloodied covering. Not blood shed from my own veins, but a scarlet flow of love from His own heart that leaves me weeping at His feet, longing for His touch, bathed in His love! What love ... oh, that I would come to know it more fully, wrap myself within its folds and never again wander from its embrace.



© DeAnna L. Brooks
23 February 2005

LOVE's TEMPTATION

My mind and heart are so full this morning….full of a bitter-sweetness as I reflect, Jesus, on You…on Your life….on Your journey here. What rejoicing You and Your Father must have shared as You stepped into Your Jordan River, submitting Your body to the hand of John as You had and continued to submit Your heart to Your Father. As Your human form was laid beneath the water, how some must have rejoiced….how others must have shuttered. Your own Rubicon …..declared that day, for all to see, though they neither recognized nor understood what their earthbound eyes took in. But Your Father knew…..and understood. How He rejoiced….rejoiced in Your gift to Him….rejoiced in Your gift to those Your loving hand had already fashioned….rejoiced in Your heart…..until it overflowed, shouting His joy and pleasure to ears that were trained to hear Him….pouring forth His Spirit for eyes that were trained to see.

That joy and pleasure called You forth from those very waters of declaration….called You aside…to His side…..called You to a sweet communion with Him that no man could disturb. Man….that master tool of Your ever present adversary!

How often, in years now spent, Your adversary had attempted to hinder Your heart. How often he endeavored to blind Your eyes and deafen Your ears to Your Father. How utterly evident his failure now. So he stepped in…. himself.

As Your Father sent forth His ministering angels, did he seize his chance? Did he slip in among their numbers behind the sham of a servant’s heart? Was it the first time Your earthly eyes beheld him?

Did heavenly memories flood in? Memories of the two of you….standing together….beside the Father with kindred hearts? Did the memories tear at Your spirit filling you anew with a pain so raw it still caused Your soul to bleed in anguish? Did he appear beside You disguised as Your friend? Did he, too, shout hosanna….filling the skies with a feigned pleasure….breaking anew a Father’s heart? Kindling again a Father’s holy ire? A love-bound Father who could only allow Your love to do battle in a realm far beyond this temporal orb.

Recognizing his form…his comeliness….when did You recognize his heart? His heart, not full of empathy…but oozing enmity! Was it a new heartbreak…..a hope-filled pleasure shattered by a love turned self-ward? A love fully engaged against the very You-ness of Your being. Did Your soul silently cry with longing words that would not find utterance until torn from the fruit of a cross-ravaged body, IT IS FINISHED!!

Did You know, even then, that it wasn’t?

Did You see me…..crafted by Your master’s hand….called by Your name before time ever measured its first beat….calling You my Beloved….wearing the guise of friend….only to show myself reflecting the heart of Your eternal adversary….seeing me call into question Your love by my actions…..by my rejection of the liberty You purchased at unimaginable cost…..by allowing myself to be a sham for the heart of one still echoing his rejection down the corridor of the ages?

As I with love turned self-ward cause Your soul to bleed in fresh anguish, do I hear the whispered promise of Your cry in a time yet to come…. IT IS….TRULY…. FINISHED!!!



© DeAnna L. Brooks
8 May 2001

OFFERINGS

Words no longer fall upon
The pages of this day
Where I would fill them readily
With all I have to say

But they are given not to me
Though thirst for them I do
Might it be my eyes are blind
And search without a clue?

What words have I to offer life
To those who yearn for more
Than the residue that fills their cup
As they wander down life’s shore?

Pride, it stands a stumbling block
To words from God’s own throne
And He must tear the stones apart
That I would claim my own

Words chiseled by my hand and pen
And altered till they fit
The imagine that I try to paint
Within my words of writ

If words make up my offering, Lord,
Let them be of unhewned stone
Falling from the Word of God
Of the sweetness I have known

Sweetness of amazing grace
That covers me each day
Through sacrificial offering
And the blood-price You did pay

Upon an altar made of wood
An altar I’d have fled
Your life You placed upon its nails
For me Your blood was shed

The Word who spoke it all in place
Who held each atom tight
Saw my need and with Your love
Was moved to meet my plight

Words that fall upon life’s page
Are written by Your hand
With fingerprints so visible
I come to understand

If I would be Your instrument
Through which Your ink will flow
My words must fall from Your own heart
So that others, too, may know

I have no words to offer life
They fall from Your own pen
Written with a scarlet ink
And a love You bore within







© DeAnna L. Brooks
9 February 2005

AND THE WALLS FELL DOWN

“Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple,
and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple.
And Jesus said to them,‘Do you not see all these things?
Assuredly, I say to you not one stone shall be left here upon another,
that shall not be thrown down.’”
(Matthew 24:1-2)

To be completely honest, I cannot begin to imagine what the temple looked like when Jesus walked the dusty streets of Jerusalem. When He longed to gather its children to His heart, beneath the protective sheltering of His wings, the temple stood as one of the great wonders of the world. It was magnificent, built in obedience to God’s directives, with the hands of man. A place designed stone by stone, curtain by curtain, furnishing by furnishing ... each to reflect a glimpse of His glory to a watching world. And it drew people, Jew and Gentile alike. Courtyards full. Temple treasuries overflowing. Blood pouring in an endless river marking sin’s passage.

But it had lost the truth of its heart....that the temple stood a mere shadow to man of the reality of God’s provision and salvation. And in that lost message, a seed first seen in heaven’s courtroom, nestled in Lucifer’s heart, sprang to life in a courtyard built by man. The scarlet river, a shadow of the atonement to come poured upon the ground, leaving lives unchanged, by the contamination of sin’s touch.

Jesus’ righteous indignation stands a stark reminder of God’s truth. What God meant to point men to Himself had instead become a den of religious thieves and robbers. Man corrupted the message. God became buried by the works of man’s hands. And the stones had to fall.

Salvation never came through the works of man, only through the grace of God. Other stones would mark the picture more clearly. Stones into which a cross was driven. Stones painted red by a scarlet stream flowing from Heaven’s eternal Lamb. Stones, unable to hold the Author of Life, forever rolled away.

Though rejected by man, God laid the Chief Cornerstone of a temple built not by the hands of man, but by His own hands. A temple whose stones would stand eternal.




© DeAnna L. Brooks
7 February 2005