Do you feel like you’re stretched thin at the moment? Do you think, ‘I’m not sure I’ll hold up’? Can I continue like I am? Is everything being stripped away from you? This may well be for you.
We are all under pressure in so many ways as we enter into this new year. Even the earth groans under the weight of pressures. Pressure on water, on energy and food. The balance of nature is all out. As human beings we have a lot to answer for. The Greek word thlipsis – pressure, is often translated as tribulation.
We all have a responsibility for ourselves as individuals. Yet we also have responsibility for those around us as well. We can only do so much – that which is in our power to do. But if we are not standing on a firm foundation we will go under.
I have come to a place which has felt like a knife edge. All that I have known has been stretched thin. Here I am talking about my inner life and what it means to have purpose, know where I am headed. The words I wrote before about responsibility are not true unless I have that inner strength. My inner strength comes and goes when I have not set my heart on that which is stable. The only way forward for me I have found is to take hold of the hand of The One who understands about humanity who faced death itself and has gone beyond death. He knows what it is like to be fully human.
I was at the seaside it was somewhere like Hornsea or Withernsea. I was in the sea paddling, enjoying the sensation, watching the waves. It was a bright beautiful day. My parents and other family members were there. Suddenly the state of play changed, no longer were the waves those calm, lapping, summer-day like waves. These were different. There were three really low, fast waves like miniature Tsunamis. Intense, straight edges, moving with pace. I had to go. I had to get away and out of the sea. I was already going back up the beach as I’d seen I could. I had a staff which helped me keep my balance. I wasnt sure I was going to make it. The waves were powerful and full of white foamy crests. I was in the water yet not taken out. I headed for where I could climb up. I got out and up and over the promenade. I looked back to see no one. They were wiped out. The sea had come up and over the beach- front, over the top, onto dry land. It was shocking! I was stunned! I continued up the coastline moving away from the sea with it behind me. I looked around on the cliff-side were lots of futuristic brightly coloured dispersed houses. It was a big holiday settlement looking like place. I wondered whether the houses would survive these waves.
I was taken aback by the intensity of this experience and was shaken by it. I didn’t know initially what it was about. I asked the Holy Spirit. The phrase – cut off, came to me. This is what this is about.
There are many ways we have been cut off in lockdown and through this pandemic. The most obvious one is from social interaction other than on a screen. We have been cut-off from loved ones, our families and friends. Yet in the cutting off something new is ahead of us.
One small detail of the experience at the sea was the presence of a staff. I did not know how I came to have the staff. It is as if it was always part of me. The well known Psalm 23 was my first port of call in this regard.
Even when I go through the darkest valley,
I fear no danger,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—they comfort me.
Psalm 23.4 (CEB)
The staff is a tool of the shepherd to guide, count (Lev 27.32), protect, care and discipline (Ps 89.32, 2 Sam 7.14). My experience shows that I indeed took comfort from the staff. The staff is not only a symbol of these things mentioned but it is a symbol of who Jesus is by the power of The Holy Spirit who is the comforter.
Recently I have felt the discipline of his presence through some of my poor attitudes to those close to me and I have had to submit to that correction and not wallow in self pity but see that he wants the best for me. His aim for all of us who walk with him is to be our support as well as bring us out into a spacious place. He is the one doing the leading and guiding.
Jesus has gone before us as he states in the Gospel of John, to prepare a place for us demonstrated by the brightly coloured houses. I wasn’t sure they were safe but his staff enabled me to come to that place. He knows what’s best for each of us. The place is somewhere we can abide in now. Heaven is a current reality which we are learning to enter into through our earthly lives every day.
Something else I noted about the experience was the relationship between the staff and the dwellings. I am not sure how correct this is, not being a Hebrew linguist. There maybe a root word connection. On reading Psalm 23.4 I notice in the study Bible that there is a special note on rod:
There is a song that keeps coming to me a lot at the moment. It is a Hebrew song and the first few lines can be seen below:
Henei ma tov umanaim
Shevet achim gam yachad
Hinei ma tov umanaim
Shevet achim gam yachad
The song is the first verse of Psalm 133 and it was striking that the word looks and sounds like the Hebrew word for rod. This is not the case as you look at the word here and the meaning is also different: ישׁב yšb to dwell; to marry; to sit, sit down, remain sitting; to be inhabited.
Sometimes we may get a connection like that, which doesn’t make strict intellectual sense when we look at it but is more intuitive or mystical. This may be something that the Spirit of the Lord is trying to get our attention about. Hold onto that lightly. I like to think that I was led to the dwellings by the rod who is also Jesus!
In the Septuagint version of Isaiah 11.1 there is a reference to a rod coming forth from Jesse. The Greek word here is ῥάβδος rhabdos which has three different meanings or functions, a staff, a rod or a sceptre.
Shepherd your people with your staff,
the flock of your inheritance,
those dwelling alone in a forest
in the midst of Carmel.
Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead,
as in the days of old.
Malachi 7.14
Jesus is a good shepherd and will guide us through this tough time if we let him. We need to listen to his heart and tune our hearts to his however painful that might be. In the experience I was pushed up the beach by the waves, forced to make a decision to get to where the dwellings were, the place of safety. I could not have done this without the steadying of the staff. My comfort and direction.
May you also find comfort, strength and direction in getting hold of the staff – Jesus, the best comfort of all!