Puncture Wound
Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! 2 Corinthians 12:7 NASB
Thorn in the flesh – I started writing Today’s Word more than ten years ago. Now there are nearly 5000 editions. With thousands of studies about the Hebrew and Greek vocabulary of Scripture, you might imagine that I would have found some enduring answers. But I can tell you straight from the heart that I am no “Bible answer-man.” I am less sure today about what I believe to be true and what I used to believe was true than at any time in my life. I have reached the point of a genuine and deep crisis of faith. I don’t mean that any of my confidence in God as Creator or Yeshua as Messiah is suspect. In fact, those two propositions are probably more firmly embedded in my thinking than ever. What I mean is that I have serious doubts about me, about my commitment, my obedience, my trust in YHVH. I am no longer confident that YHVH intends what I most want out of life. I don’t know if I trust Him to care for me. In a sentence, I am afraid of God. I am afraid of what He might do, what He might ask. But most of all, I am afraid He is finished with me, that I am no longer worthy of Him, that my life is a triumph of unfinished intentions. These days He seems much less like a Father and much more like the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe whose claim on my life is absolute but whose demands are overwhelming.
Is God gracious? You’ve probably settled this issue. I used to think I had. Then I began to discover that the Scriptures I grew up with have been significantly modified to justify theological commitments and reject Jewish interpretations. Then I realized that the material of the apostolic writings reflects cultural influences of non-canonical documents that call into question the assumed continuity between the Tanakh and the words of the writers. Then I found that there is a vast body of literature familiar to Jewish orthodoxy that has never even been mentioned in my Christian circles. Finally, I learned that the Christian Church is intentionally anti-Semitic in origin and practice. I felt as if the ground of all my previous understanding of God, sin, grace and heaven had been opened by an earthquake chasm of information—all contrary to decades of religious training.
But more than that, more than the realization that I just did not know the truth, was the awareness that I was no longer safe. The promise of salvation by proclamation evaporated in the heat of real exegesis. The idea that obedience is the principle and perhaps unique determination of relationship left me shattered, knowing that my life is riddled with disobedience. The battle between yetzer ha’ra and yetzer ha’tov, once hidden under a pile of religious platitudes about forgiveness, was exposed as a raging force in my every day existence. Habit overcame conscience. I was confronted with the sheer arrogance of my life and the deepest fear that God would punish, in fact, was required to punish me for my sins. As much as I wanted to please Him, I found that I did not have the willpower to do so, and that led me to the edge of despair, a bleeding line between consciousness of my sin and brokenness over my deficiency. Most of all I discovered the terrifying fact that I don’t trust God.
Of course, in the sanctified chamber of intellectual pursuit, I could still write about all these issues. I could articulate the nuances, demonstrate the applications, even help others see how the power of God’s words changed lives. But every page brought more condemnation. At the end of each paragraph I heard the Accuser whispering, “You hypocrite!” The gap between what I knew and what I do just got bigger and bigger until I couldn’t write anymore. I could force the words on to the page, but they didn’t flow like they once did. I was acutely aware of the absence of the Spirit.
Some days were better. I played John Wayne’s role in True Grit. Forcing myself to not step over any lines. But there was hardly any joy in the practice and that, of course, brought back the accusation. “Isn’t serving the Lord supposed to bring you peace? Aren’t you supposed to love Him? Do you really think He is pleased with the stink of your sacrifices?” There was no avoiding the outcome—despair.
It didn’t make much difference that the rabbis taught me that serving others even for the wrong motives was still a righteous act. The catalog of my sins tipped the scales anyway. I was not comforted to find Jewish sages telling me that despair isn’t a word in Hebrew vocabulary. From the bottom of the pit, it certainly felt like despair even if I didn’t have a word for it. I wanted to just give up, let whatever hopes I used to have of peace and fulfillment float away and stop the pain. But there is no medication for spiritual crisis. Sleep, perhaps. But only if you don’t dream.
So many people expect me to be something more than I know myself to be. I am just a traveler, often very much alone, afraid of what I might find but unable to turn back. I do the best I can with what I have but I know it is not enough. I am good friends with guilt. We spend a lot of time together, sharing our common life by picking each other apart. I no longer remember what it must have been like to feel clean. “Maybe,” I tell myself, “I can find the way out with another hard look at His Word.” I believe what He says, but without those comfortable artificial glasses the words seem much too harsh for me now. I feel His disappointment. I want to cry, to weep over me and the failure I am, but I can’t manufacture the tears. That too would be hypocrisy.
There are anesthetics. They all cause greater pain after they wear off. I am too tired to use them. Too worn out to pretend they will help. I know the truth. They are false diversions. There is no help except in Him and He is silent these days.
If faith is tenacity, then Jacob and I fight side by side at the brook. But unlike Jacob, I know in advance I will be defeated. I long for the touch that cripples me for then I would at least know He still cares enough to hurt but not kill. I want to hold on until He pries away my bloody fingers, but there is nothing to grip. He is already gone. Jacob and I sit in the dark, waiting.
Some days all that I have to sustain me is the obligation of Today’s Word. The 1 AM deadline. One more page of pain. But it keeps me alive, all this confusion and sorrow and regret. It keeps me alive to know that someone else out there needs to hear what I write today. And if I can stay alive long enough, maybe He will hear my cries and come back to find me in the dark.
Now that I reflect on the words written here, I realize that my focus is in the wrong place. I have been complaining (perhaps obliquely) that I don’t feel adequate, that I feel lost and alone. But now I see that the focus is on me. When I look at the evidence, I see that God has used me to enrich others. It was never about me. He doesn’t need me to be the best at this or to feel as if I am the apple of His eye or to even worry about being alone. He needs me to keep going because others are blessed through me. What He is doing with me results in changes in lives other than mine. Because I act, feel, think, write what I discover, others are nourished, encouraged, uplifted and cared for. That is the sign of His involvement with me. In my efforts and failures to satisfy my expectations for Him, He uses my emotional instability to touch others. This is a deep spiritual principle. God uses what we give Him and if all I can give Him is my discouragement and inadequacy, that is completely sufficient for Him to accomplish His purposes. There are no circumstances God can’t use. The question is whether or not we can see how He uses them.
Today a woman wrote to me about the community’s recent action in support of Amanda. She said that she had never seen anything like this, that in all the years she had been going to church nothing in her religious community had ever exhibited the kind of unselfish care and concern for a woman and her family like what we did for Amanda. The significant support for Amanda is all the more powerful because nearly all of those who contributed never met Amanda. They were moved by true compassion. I realized that I was blessed because Amanda revealed her heartache. God blessed me, showed His care for me, because I see that if this can happen for Amanda, it means that God loves me too. He just has me in a different place at the moment.
Now I feel sadness for those who did not glimpse what God was doing for us through the difficulties of followers like Amanda. Now I realize that I have been selfish in my expectation that God needed to care for me in ways that I thought He should. He merely had to remind me that my life is about making it possible for Him to be seen in the lives of others.
Today I am grateful. The injury suffered in the night at the brook brought joy to us all.
Topical Index: thorn, 2 Corinthians 12:7
Thank you, Skip. How can we hope to be honest with others if we fail to be brutally honest with ourselves? This resonates with me.
“There is no help except in Him and He is silent these days.”
A most painful place to be. I do not know how to make it less so. Sometimes for years, this has happened to me. But as I have studied scripture, it seems obvious others have been here.
Thank you for your faithfulness to this work, Skip.
Here is a prophetic book by Wendy Alex I just read that lifted my spirits, challenged me and gave me great hope. Wendy has just come out of a massive two illness that she writes about, asking many of the same questions you are, that I do.
It’s not particularly intellectual compared to what you normally read, but the Spirit is in these words and I trust they will lovingly challenge you as they have me.
http://www.amazon.com/Visions-Heaven-Visitations-Fathers-Chamber-ebook/dp/B00ISEFYVA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1413706018&sr=1-1&keywords=wendy+alec
Peter Alexander
Brother Skip, there are thousands of words and sentences and thoughts coming to and through my mind that I could share from myself also in relation to what you have shared here.
But I am thinking perhaps only two words will be needed:
“Me too.”
I have prayed for you and will continue to pray, for your favor, your uplifting, the restoration of joy and energy to do the work, and most of all… a simple huge, long, warm, and reassuring hug from the Arms of our Father and King.
You must wait now. Very hard, but I believe this is what is known as faithfulness. Waiting and holding on when there seems to be “nothing there”
Pushing through the everyday for Him, even when we no longer “want to” until The Renewal breaks forth once again. And it will. It will.
I really appreciate your openness and your words Skip, thank you … just wanted to let you know ..
Dearest Skip,
Thank you for being human! I read somewhere long ago that the closer we get to Him, the dirtier and more insignificant we seem, until it is just best to stop thinking of ourselves altogether (C.S. Lewis, I think)! It has been good advice for me. I know He is closest to us in the darkness, on our crosses.
I spent my decades in the trenches, holding on for one more minute, because I was pulling a wagon loaded with precious people. My love was tested until I could see it! My Lord knew that I was the one who was doubting myself, and only a love purified in the fire is a love to be trusted. He pulls away sometimes, I think, so that we can hear ourselves, see ourselves, from our own hearts. When we feel His presence too closely, I think we can be tempted to act like a two-year-old, who picks up his feet off the ground the instant his father takes his hand and goes “wheee!” It is too easy to let Him do all the pulling in the rough places, but there is our part, too.
If you find yourself in the dark, then you could be suspicious, perhaps, that there is something IN THAT PLACE, that needs a human being to see it FROM THAT ANGLE. I ran around the control room of righteousness, as a child, furiously pushing all the buttons that had worked only yesterday, only to find that none of them seemed to work any more! The grace I had been obviously skating on had seemingly evaporated! It was rough! The harder I pulled, the rougher it got! For 40 years it was amazingly awful.
At the other side of the Slough of Despond (what a name for a pond!), having exhausted all my questions and frustrations that I had found in front of my face, I dragged myself up on my bank, only to find Him there, with a diploma for me, and healing in His wings! “Now”, He said to me, “Go speak for others who have no voice, and who are in that darkness, and show them what you found”. I have been trying to learn how to yell ever since! I am constantly sorry to all around me, including all of you precious people, who have been having to put up with my practicing! Sorry to you, and thankful, too. I am now personally motivated, though; committed like the pig, so the old saying goes. In the barnyard the hen and the pig were talking about who was most essential to the farm. The hen said her importance and loyalty was assured, the proof of such being demonstrated by the daily egg she laid. “Well”, said the pig, “You may involved, but I am committed!” I think that it is impossible, from the human standpoint, to be committed to the trenches of obedience, until we find ourselves in the ditch of the test of our trust. I know that I was not serving Him from a place of perfect trust, did not know HOW to trust Him until I found myself seemingly alone. To work towards trust again FROM THAT PLACE has cleaned up so much of what lay between us THAT I COULD NOT SEE until it got dark. Now, when I hit a rough place, I have learned to start looking around for some garbage to take out, some seemingly insignificant part of my life that did not seem to be in the way, because there is surely something hanging up the deal! It just seems easier to take out the trash when you find you have just lost your job!
But above and beyond that, I now believe there was an assignment for me that I was in no way, shape or form going to be interested in doing, before I got stopped from laying my daily egg of outward ‘perfection’ (obedience), and instead got thrown off the back of the wagon into my ditch! Yes, I did fall off that turnip truck, y’all, but, thank God! it wasn’t yesterday! I now have ditch mileage under my belt! I have traveled in that ditch! It is hard in the pit, I know, but I just feel that you have been blessed and honored by a bigger assignment, Skip. I have been praying HARD for you the last few days, because I can see you wrestling with the burden on your heart that whatever separates us as the commonwealth from our brothers, the Jews, be removed, and the veil over ALL our eyes, including theirs, be removed, and if you find yourself in that darkness, know that you may be there to see truly for all of us TOGETHER, and I pray that you will see whatever it is in your dark that you need to see for us, as well as for yourself. I am praying that you will see it well, and clear, so that he who runs will be able to read it, and so that the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. And I am praising Him for you right now! And often! You are right. Our lives are about SO MUCH MORE THAN OURSELVES! This is my prayer for you, for all of us, and for you, too.
Love, Laurita
Good morning Skip. Thank you. If God is silent, then I invite you to dive deep into that silence, rest from the words and be refreshed. You are vessel for us, so please experience Psalm 46 as the Psalmist did when he laid his pen down for a blissful rest.
A good suggestion. Deep silence is probably where God is these days.
Without question there are those of us who can identify with your experience (though maybe not to the same depths or perhaps we just lack the ability to distinguish, display and describe it so powerfully). Then there are those whose present experience with God is from gory to gory instead of glory to glory and finally, there are those who are in the queue to enter into that dark, dank dungeon with nary a clue as what lies ahead. What I have difficulty imagining is a class of believers who never experience the suffering of this Ebola of the soul. Perhaps there are many so favored. It is not that I would wish this virus upon anyone, but I believe and do testify that if one can scratch and crawl their way to YHVH from this far away, lonely and hopeless place then they will not easily or soon depart from the bosom of their deliverer. Yes, truly ALL things do work for our good, but it almost never feels like it at the time. Thank you Skip once again for your translucent heart and your sojourner’s journal. Shalom, Michael
I have commented several times on the depths of my thankfulness and gratefulness for the truth and life that pour fourth. I am coming alive for the first time and at 62 that’s a long time. I was imprisoned in culture trying to control my external reputation and managing internal tensions created by my choices of compartmentalized identities. God does still set the prisoners free, leads the blind in ways they do not know, makes wise the simple and shows the path of life. Thank you!
Coming to the reality, like Moses, keenly aware that God knows me intimately (every aspect of my life), that I have some idea of what He asks of me, that I cannot do it without His presence are amazing in and of themselves. Yet, your encouragements, your personal testimonies woven in the fabric of your writing encourage me to risk more…to hope and believe and touch the place that Moses did and say but God I do not know you. To touch depths of emotional places I did not know were possible crying out for a community that I wonder like Abraham will I see this promise in my life. I run back and hold on to the Lucky Life and all the encouragements found in a journey by one who has gone before me.
Some time ago He asked me why do children stop drawing….it seemed like a simple response they stop drawing because their ability to draw is in conflict with the reality they are trying to express and articulate. I was ok until He asked me the next question…why do children stop crying…puddles of tears….All that to say, thank you and don’t stop crying!!
Skip,
I don’t have all of the words and wisdom of the others that have shared here. I can just say thank you for sharing that you are and have been where I am and have been. Because in my mind if it is okay for Skip to be in that place it’s okay for me too. I’m not alone and neither are you. How can anyone that seeks to know the Truth of who God is not be in this place? It becomes painfully obviously that our rightousness is as filthy rags! I’m desperate for His grace and presence in my life.
You are a blessing each and every day!
Thank you!
Skip, thank you for all of your help that you do.
I credit your knowledge and Him working through you for so much of my understanding and ultimately leading to my growing faith. I often look at you as a spiritual role model of how we are, ‘suppose to getting it done’. Easily you could be, ‘sitting up there’ and pointing, ‘down here’ making people feel bad for for there misconceptions – but you don’t. Quite the opposite, you humble yourself and explain to us how we are suppose to walk (and you do a great job at it).
So I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart and keep plowing. The more I grow in faith the more I have come to accept that He likes a good fight. I’ve often wondered why sometimes I feel really close to Him and other days it’s like I’m a child just realizing that my parent just let go of my hand in the parking lot – I start to panic.
It’s during those time I’ve come to accept that sometimes through distance it’s the only time that we can appreciate each others existence and without distance there could not be appreciation (doesn’t make it suck any less though).
So again, thank you, I validate your feelings, I understand the feelings, and I’m use to the feelings, I have Catholic guilt that runs through my veins (Catholic for 25 years before this). Just know you have a whole community of people praying for you. You are amazing at what you do, we can clearly see Him working through you.
Wow! Thank you for that roller coaster ride Skip! You are blessed and you bless many others!
Gal 2:20 “I have been impaled with Messiah, and I no longer live, but Messiah lives in me.1 And that which I now live in the flesh I live by belief in the Son of Elohim, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Footnote: 1Rom. 8:10, 2 Cor. 6:16, 2 Cor. 13:5, Eph. 3:17, Col. 1:27, 1 John 4:4.
Greetings Skip. It sounds to me as if the “old man” is in its death throes. Let him die in order that you may live the life of Yahshua instead. It is not about us but about Him. He gave Himself for you in order that you may live His life in the here and now. His life in you will be one of peace and the calm assurance of the Father’s love. And one day, sooner than later by the signs all around us, His children will be awarded the gift of immortality to live with Him.
The Scriptures reveal a “time of trouble such as there never was”, before the end of this age as we know it and perhaps He is preparing you to go through that time as a mouthpiece for Him to give the Loud Cry. Let Him have His perfect way in you.
May you turn your face like flint to the goal of eternal life with Yahshua and never turn to the right or to the left and never, never turn back. You have come too far and you have brought many others with you.
Shalom
Thank you. Your words really spoke to me just now.
Thank you Skip. I believe your words resonate within all of us who have been on this journey for any amount time. If they (your words) don’t, then we need to take off “those comfortable artificial glasses”, and feel the tension of His Word. I am beginning to understand David’s words when he says, “…I love Your testimonies. My flesh trembles for fear of You, and I am afraid of Your judgments.” (Psalm 119:119-120) Oh, the Divine Tension.
“He needs me to keep going because others are blessed through me.” Those words help raise motive where there is none. Thank you Skip for the reminder.
I suppose we all are in the pit of despair, sooner or later. For myself, I have been numb, could not even cry to our Father. When all is darkness, what could I do but wait. Now I have hope again, and not just hope but am excited with the road ahead. God is good! And a huge part of my hope comes from your teaching, Skip. Many places of darkness in my life are slowly alluminated. I have a lot of unlearning to do but bit by bit more light appears. I don’t know where I will be tomorrow, but for today, I can “see” a little bit. And that gives me joy. To be faithful, is it not to keep walking when we can and to keep waiting when we can’t walk? Sometimes we have to wait in that darkness, knowing the light of His goodness will shine again.
Lisa, you wrote perfectly that, “I have a lot of unlearning to do but bit by bit more light appears. I don’t know where I will be tomorrow, but for today, I can “see” a little bit. And that gives me joy.” AMEN!
Thank you so much, Skip, for walking in front of us with the flashlight!
I read “Puncture Wound” this morning and just cried. Sitting here bathed in the light of my computer crying. I don’t know that I can explain why other than it resonated with me. I have felt many of the things you spoke of Skip and most of the time I just didn’t have a clue as to what to do about it. I just went on somehow.
And somehow, the unexplainable tears have cleansed something in me. The tears have traveled through me and left a bit of shalom with me. Amazing.
Thank you.
Thank you all for words of encouragement and suggestion. Right now I am waiting for a plane to come home from Africa. In spite of the injury, I discovered how much God cares for me because I experienced so many here who care, and now I see there are so many more. I am blessed. And grateful
Skip,
I think your soul searching, self doubts, introspection and then willingness to write about them with such vulnerability are some of the many gifts God has blessed you with.
You write about things most people are unwilling to acknowledge even too themselves, let alone discuss openly with others. Yet, most of us have felt these same feelings at one time or another.
Praise God for yet another opportunity to wrestle with getting to know Him at a deeper level, even tho the process can be scary or discouraging. May we all lean into our fears and see what God has in store for us!!
Thanks for leading the way Skip.
One more thing I forgot to say in my earlier post…
I think that the more we become aware of and examine the flaws in ourselves…the more compassion and forgiveness we are capable of toward others. And, that’s a good thing.
Again…thank you Skip for leading the way.
Your ‘word’ arrived early this morning and as I sat here with coffee in hand…I read it outloud to my husband…we cried. We could also have written those words…in fact, even after our Sukkot…our rejoicing, our releasing and our renewal….the nagging question still lingers on – “Is this where 30 years of Torah brings us? Is this the road of victory? Is this the love of the Father? – REALLY???” Just a traveler, just another broken vessel, just another down-trodden soul doing the best they can with what they know…and sinking many times in the cesspool of self-pity abandoning the hand that wants to hold me up.
Our situation has only worsened … our relationships are still broken and seem to have no threads left to glue back together….and we are wondering if it is all worth it……. and then…. someone such as you, a leader, a respected and loved teacher, bares his soul and admits that they too have various John Wayne faces that they pick up once in a while as well….and yet….works through the pain, the disillusionment and the fears and emerges still reaching up for the hand that extends from above. May I be able to do likewise…surely there are those out there that have benefited from me in some way or another…surely it is not all for naught!
Thank you Skip … thank you for blessing me for this…and for so much more. ~ Pam
My Brother,
Forgive me if this seems a bit too personal to be broadcasting all over the world. I am the sort of person who is all about deep relationships… and relationships that grow to that “elevation” very quickly. Fair weather friends and frivolous gabbing and bouncing around in meaningless presence with others is not for me.
I have appreciated you, Skip, from when we first learned of your teachings as well as the way you put “shoe leather” to your service to others. I’ve “watched” you build roads, homes, maybe wells and definitely HOPE in Haiti, touch lives, especially Irene’s, in South Africa, cry out to the flock to help meet needs of God’s children, like Amanda, and just bring a tickle and a smile to teens’ faces and hearts– like those of Kinsey and her siblings. You stand out in the crowd… and not just because you are tall!
I think this post is one of the “best” TW I’ve ever read. I praise YHVH that my prayers for you are being answered with His POWERFUL Touch on your heart.
When we first met in Sandpoint ID, the concerns I’ve had in my heart that you run run run, never letting us, your family and your students, get close to the real Skip, were confirmed. While I was so very blessed to finally hug you, I felt a sort of numbness and maybe loneliness you might be living with.
After the heavy, crammed-full and impacting teaching, we watched you hurry hurry hurry to your motel to your next plane for your next trip, and I felt a loss for you. Don’t miss out on being human, on being cared for and loved and appreciated and wanted and missed… and of being vulnerable. We’re the BEST THING God ever created and He finds joy in us, especially when we come to the end of ourselves and let Him do the work. We REALLY are the vessels, mouthpieces, shofars which He has created to live out His Essence… love… in the best way we know how… and we keep learning.
So now, dear Brother, I think you need a vacation. We invite you to pack up your wife and come to our home in remote, peaceful, quiet northcentral WA state! We don’t even have one street light in the entire county! Nothing to do but r-e-l-a-x.
TO ALL OF US WHO LOVE TW AND ARE COMMITTED TO REJOICING IN BEING GRAFTED IN:
As I read your replies to Skip’s TW today, my soul leaped with joy! OUR FELLOWSHIP IS SO WAY COOL!!! Imagine if we could all meet physically once in awhile for days at a time, just learning, sharing, singing, praying, PRAISING YHVH together as the “old clothes” of our man-made gospel are exchanged for way comfortable
OOOOPS… sorry… that posted before I was finished.
I was trying to say how thankful I am for this fellowship… Imagine if we could all meet physically once in awhile for days at a time, just learning, sharing, growing, singing, praying, PRAISING YHVH together. Our “old clothes” of our man-made gospel have been exchanged for new, softer, form-fitting RUNNING OUTFITS… let’s stay on the track CELEBRATING TOGETHER, encouraging one another as we strive toward the goal; the feet of our Messiah!
Thank you, Brothers and Sisters, for your beautiful, deep, personal testimonies this morning!
Off topic, but no where else to post.
Knowing and believing in the power and efficaciousness of community prayer I ask those who read this and are willing to stand with my wife, myself and multiple believers in Jamaica against the enemies encroachment upon our island this very day (Sunday Oct 19, 2014). At 2 pm (EST) Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam will be staging a “Million Man March” in our capital city of Kingston. Please pray and stand with us that their seeds of deception do not take root in the souls of the men and women of Jamaica. Pray that Yah will raise up voices shouting from the moutain tops, proclaiming the truth of Torah for the nation to behold, hear and obey it’s author – Yeshuha HaMashiach.
Thank you. Michael and Arnella
3 pm EST, not 2. An hour behind us… Island time, you know.
Thank you for letting us know and of course we will pray with you. But just something I’ve been thinking about that might apply here – we know that OUR witness is our lives and relationships, not crusades and street corner preaching. Would that be any less true for those who preach lies? I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t have concern, and like you, I do — but I wonder if we don’t give the “opposition” more credit than deserved, given the circumstances?
Praying with you that all who hear will reject the lies and be drawn to Truth!
Dear Ones,
I just saw this and will devote much time to pray against the wiles of the evil one. Thank you for shining light on this atrocity.
May you be comforted and strengthened by meditating on Isaiah45:3 and Isaiah 50:10. These words have kept me in times of darkness as you are describing. I have been greatly blessed and challenged by DW and know that they will only grow richer and deeper as you pass through this “dark night of your soul”. Thank you for all your sacrifice to feed others. Linda
Brother Skip, although I don’t have the same calling or near the responsibilities that you have, I can so identify with many/most of the feelings you describe in your very honest post.
About 10 years ago the Lord began to reveal things to me about the importance of Torah and how it was relevant and necessary in the life of a believer in Yeshua. And the Lord began this process, not me. It didn’t take long before I realized this was going to be a lifelong journey of discipleship. As He showed me some of the things you described, I had also had the realization that this was going to be a difficult and potentially costly commitment but I now know I didn’t understand how much this was going to true. I apparently hadn’t counted the cost. But I am more determined than ever to try my best to run this race to the end.
You said “Then I began to discover that the Scriptures I grew up with have been significantly modified to justify theological commitments and reject Jewish interpretations. Then I realized that the material of the apostolic writings reflects cultural influences of non-canonical documents that call into question the assumed continuity between the Tanakh and the words of the writers. Then I found that there is a vast body of literature familiar to Jewish orthodoxy that has never even been mentioned in my Christian circles. Finally, I learned that the Christian Church is intentionally anti-Semitic in origin and practice. I felt as if the ground of all my previous understanding of God, sin, grace and heaven had been opened by an earthquake chasm of information—all contrary to decades of religious training.” I experienced this too. I felt that after 25 years (at that point) of trying to serve the Lord, I had been on the wrong road to reach the desired destination. I was so shaken to think that much of what I had been taught (and shamefully that I had taught) was wrong or at least biased and distorted and I felt what you described about not knowing what you believed. As some people like to say “I didn’t know what I didn’t know.” Your TW writings have been a significant and important part of this journey to get on the right road. I just didn’t know how costly discipleship to our Master would become.
About a year and a half ago I invited a local pastor, who had given up his church due to his wife’s health problems, to go to a conference at a Messianic synagogue with me and my wife. While on this trip this pastor invited my wife to visit the church where he attended and did some teaching. Actually, he invited me too but I knew I wasn’t interested after some of the things I had learned. When we returned from the conference my wife, with the encouragement of this pastor, began to attend this church and get more involved in the activities there. It wasn’t long before I started to notice her withdrawing from things connected with the small Torah study group we had been a part of for over 5 years, where I was the leader at that time. She began to lose interest in what we had been doing for about 10 years. She withdrew from good friends we had for years who also were interested in the Torah of truth. This pastor began to invite her to activities that conflicted with our group’s observance of Shabbat and the Holy Days, and she preferred being with this pastor and his wife than with me or our other long-time friends. It was apparent from his influence she had been convinced that our focus on Torah was not important and what was important was to follow the “spirit” and the “prophetic anointing”. This pastor really has the typical Pentecostal doctrine and dogma down pat and can be very pursuasive. The hard part was I also saw her begin to withdraw from me too and want to be with her new “more spiritual” (her words) friends. She told me she needed to go where there was “the anointing” and the gifts of the spirit in operation. I have attended a few times but I saw the same excesses and distortions that I had experienced in the first 25 years of my faith in Pentecostal and charismatic circles. I just couldn’t go back into that. And she has told me she can’t go back to what we had been doing with our Torah group. For the first time in 30 years of marriage we were not on the same page spiritually. I began to realize the reality of what Yeshua said in Matthew 10:34-39 and how a person’s enemies can be those of his own household. This walk seemingly, at this point, has cost me the most precious part of life. I keep hoping that things will change, but honestly most days I don’t have much confidence that they will.
The reason I have told you all this is to encourage you to resist the desire to not continue with your TW writings in spite of your struggles. Many days I think your thoughts are one of the main things I look forward to and that I hang onto. I look forward to your blog and it’s the only one I try to read every day. I need you to challenge my thinking and cause me to seek God more to find the truth. I believe God is revealing His truth to those who will persevere and really dig for it, but it doesn’t come easy and it’s not found in most places where they claim to have the truth. And as I have found out it is costly. Your writings are one of the solid things I can look forward to each day. So brother, I understand some of your struggles and feelings of inadequacy, but please (and I know this is selfish) don’t stop. I need your insights, and from the other comments here so do many other people. I will continue to pray for you and all that you are involved with. You are a blessing and a source of fresh water in the middle of a desert.
Skip,
Since Father began opening my ears and eyes to His Truth, I have depended on Him to put the right teacher into my life and His help to discern the Truth being taught. You are the latest one He has led me to. Your understanding and depths of knowledge leaves me breathless at times. My fear is that i will not succeed in hearing and reading all you have done!
Shalom. I’m looking forward to meeting you in December!
Truett
Skip, Thank-you for sharing from the depth of your being. I am touched by the season you find yourself in and am reminded of an anonymous quote on a concentration camp wall, “I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining. I believe in love even when I can’t feel it. I believe in God even when He is silent.” I appreciate you and look to your words as a lifeline to God.
I liked Jenafor’s response as well. As I was considering how I might respond, I thought of Jesus on the cross and the agony He felt as He bore all our sins. It sounds as though you can identify with that and with the forsakenness that He felt from the Father. Please hang in there for all of us who depend on your writings daily. A breakthrough is coming! Blessings on you.
Skip, I don’t usually post though I read it all, because like you, I have a deep hunger to know all the real Truth mind of God the way He really meant it, not the way men thought He meant it. I don’t have a home computer any more so I come into a public library to right lengthy, and I usually feel like it is not worth arguing with your theology degree when I disagree so there are some subjects you get on that I just delete and love you anyway because there are some things that He proves out Himself through the 45 years of experiencing a relationship with God I have had which may not seem valuable to one whose main focus is studying the information recorded. But reading what you said here tells me I do have something to say after myself being raised with an earthly Dad who convinced me I could not be loved, there was nothing about me worth creating and I should be dead, then meeting God in the garage as my hiding place to find His reality somehow in the midst of a nightmare of a life, and finding if I did accept Jesus into my life as the only mediator worthy of coming to God, I could experience real spiritual communication from a living God who loved me unconditionally, and He could make Himself real, and Love me like no human knew how including me, and He got me secure in Him there before He ever brought me into contact with another believer, gave me a hunger for the Word by Himself, then brought me in contact with another 15 year old who also had found Him in a nightmare, then there was 30 years in churches and 14 in house churches and then He just said follow Me and took me where He wanted to when and developed another community of believers that cross paths daily. So at this point I do have a quite a bit I could say but I am going to narrow it down to some things really on my heart to say to you personally. I came to a point in my Christian walk, that I had to ask the question, “what is enough for a Holy God?” No Spiritual act, or good Christian thing, or enough obedience will measure up to a Holy God without Christ being Himself 100 percent God and 100 percent human or He could not be adequate to represent both sides, is your “enough, and He will let you run to the end of logic, and everything sourced in your own efforts to be enough Holy for Him so you can find that out. I do want to seriously warn you after seeing it happen to very mature men of God who hungered like you, got sidetracked by Satan enough to temporarily convince them that Jesus was not the way to God. I agree that the Spirit without the Word can take a person into detours of all kinds, so can all logic without the Spirit. He is not going to let you find out all the depths by reading everyone else’s findings and asking them, instead of Him, and your brain will explode if you try. You have to ask Him to show you what He means along with all that. Well, I have much more but I am about to be cut off in here and so let me say one thing about the Scripture above. Read Numbers 55:33 and you may find that Paul is remembering this verse and his thorn is a person who followed him around and tried to undo all he taught, and that is why God didn’t remove it, so he would know that God’s Spirit rooted the message in by His power not by Paul’s knowledge. The other message you mentioned about Paul not addressing Jesus, I saw as him simply doing what Jesus told His disciples they could do after His death and that was come to the Father themselves in His name, (John 16:23). and read John 8:58 and the whole book of John when in doubt that Jesus is all God.
Kay
Skip – your powerful and moving words today came as something of a shock to me, and an encouragement – a shock because you have expressed far more eloquently than I ever could what I (and others, it seems) have been wrestling with and feeling for many months now. Even this morning I was feeling numb in church (yes, I still attend Sunday services) because the thoughts constantly running through my mind were ‘how much of all this is based on false teaching?’ and ‘how will the Lord deal with all the apathy and spiritual deadness I have in my heart?’ All I can do is hold on tightly to Him for ‘to whom else can we go?’