Archive for April 9th, 2009

The Angels Have Waited

Thursday, April 09th, 2009 | Author:

The Angels Have Waited

Woke up midnight

Crying empty tears

No one sees

No one hears

 

The angels have waited

Time to go home

So far away

Can’t remember when

There were

No empty days

 

Life without you

Held back too long

The floodgates are open

Water’s all gone

 

Woke up sorrow

The world has its way

Leaves us crying

Nothing more to say

 

The angels have waited

Soon to have their day

 

 

I am road worn.  This is my 75th day on the road in the last 122.  Tomorrow I head home from El Salvador, only to turn around the next week and travel once more to Evansville.  Five more days gone in the next thirteen. 

I sat on the chair by the Pacific Ocean, listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan singing “Life Without You,” and cried.  I am tired, lonely and alone.  I miss Rosanne more than I can say.  I ache for her.  Even as I write these words, there are more tears.  I want to go home.

“It is not good for man to be alone.”

Salt sorrow slides down my cheeks, reminding me that there is much more to this than days away from her comfort.  I miss my ‘ezer.  I need her protection.  Being on the road has its own special terrors.  I miss her nourishment.  She cooks better than any meal in a restaurant because she cooks with her love (go watch the movie Like Water For Chocolate and you will understand).  She nourishes me with her soul.  I miss her care.  I miss holding her hand.  I miss hearing her talk, seeing her face, smelling her perfume.  Missing her reminds me of the deeper emptiness in my life.

I miss my father.  He died some years ago.  I never really got to know him.  He had a hard life and did the best he could, but, like me, he was a road warrior.  There is an empty place in my life that only he could fill.  No more.  I’ll have to wait until I arrive.

I miss my children, those that I brought into the world, and those that I share with Rosanne.  I don’t know any of them deeply enough.  They are becoming strangers as the road eats me up and spits out pieces of my soul, scattered across three continents.  What I have left to give probably isn’t enough for them.  It’s not enough for me.

I miss my Lord.  I know He is with me, but I long for face-to-face conversation. ” Lord, I don’t need to see your glory.  I just need to see your smile.”  I want Him to hold me, just once.  I want Him to take my hand and sit with me, just so I know I am not walking by myself.  Now I am really crying.  No one can fill this emptiness except Him.  I just want to go home.

Stevie Ray is right.  Life without you – fill in any of the people you love.  There is more than enough reason to want to go home, isn’t there?

“The angels have waited, now they’ll have their day.  Fly away home, fly away.”

Tomorrow I’ll board one more airplane and make one more trip, but I know that I am reaching the end.  My Master and my friend still sends me out, but it gets harder to go.  There is a special agony that comes with being sent.  It is joy mixed with sorrow – the way of life in this world.  Someday He will wipe away the tears, but not tonight.  Tonight I just want to go home.  I can imagine that He felt the same way.  It’s hard to live here when we know that we really don’t belong.

Tomorrow is Passover.  The angel of death will be restrained once more.  God will call His children into the wilderness to worship Him.  We will remember that He redeemed us when we cried out to Him.  So, tonight, cry with me for all those you miss.  Weep with me because there is still loneliness.  Worship Him with tears.  And wait – wait to get home when the tears will be gone at last.

 

El Salvador, 8 April 2009

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Of Both Worlds

Thursday, April 09th, 2009 | Author:

And YHWH God fashioned the dust-man from the dust and blew into his nostrils the breath of life  Genesis 2:7

Fashioned – Everything important happens in the first three chapters of Genesis.  That is no joke.  If you want to understand life, your place in it, God’s design for it and how to live it, you could not find a better source book than Genesis one to three.  The study of these eighty verses could take you a life time.  Why?  Because they are very, very deep.  Let’s look at just one tiny example.  I owe this illustration to Dr. Ismael Gonzales-Silva of Puerto Rico, a member of our community and a careful reader of the text.  He shared some work by Dr. Gerald Schroeder in The Science of God.  I will quote it to you as I believe it is very important.

“The Bible explicitly states that the body of mankind was formed from the dust of the ground.  The Hebrew word for man, adam, derives directly from the Hebrew word adamah, meaning ground or soil: “and the Lord God formed the adam dust from the adamah . . .” (Gen. 2:19).  The Bible also explicitly states that the bodies of animals were formed from the same material as Adam, the ground: “And the Lord God formed from the adamah all the animals  . . .” (Gen. 2:19).  There is, however, a crucial difference in the original Hebrew between these two verses.  The Hebrew word for formed, ya-tsar, when used for the forming of mankind, is spelled with two Hebrew letters yud.  Although the structure and grammar are the same in verses 7 and 19, when used for the formation of the animals, ya-tsar is spelled with one yud.  Every Torah scroll, whether from Yemen, Jerusalem, or Venice, California, is written this way.

Yud is the abbreviation of God’s explicit name, best translated as the Eternal.  As the ancient commentors, Rashi, Maimonides, and Nahmanides explain this verse, by doubling the yud for mankind, the Bible is telling us that although mankind and animals may share a common physical origin, there is an extra spiritual input in humanity.  The neshama, the spiritual soul of humankind, is the factor distinguishing man from beast.”

Don’t you find this fascinating?  There is no grammatical or linguistic reason to spell ya-tsar with a double consonant, but the Hebrew text does.  The rabbis believe that every letter is inspired.  That means that this mis-spelled word is no mistake.  And so, we have a purposeful change in the similarity in creation language that puts to rest any notion of evolution, centuries before Darwin ever came up with the theory.

Oh, this doesn’t mean that you will be able to use this interesting piece of linguistics to combat Darwinians.  They have their religion and sacred texts too.  This is not ammunition for debate.  It is simply confirmation that God knows what He is doing.  Those of us who have embraced the truth of Scripture will find it confirming.  Those who have not encountered the living God may dismiss it as scribal error.  I just thought you might like to see how deep these words really are.  If you want to know a lot more, maybe I’ll see you in the Genesis class.

Topical Index:  Genesis 2:7, Genesis 2:17, ya-tsar, double yud, yod, adam, adamah

Category: Today's Word  | Tags: , , , , , ,  | 3 Comments