Creating… a memory?

So, here I am attempting to recapture the many thoughts I never pinned to paper with a pen. Life has been moving so quick-slow that a week has felt like a month but at the same time has flown by. I mean, I hope a month would flow by if it was squished up into only a week.

In this past week I have started my internship at the firehouse, started working on my book again, and started writing my testimony. All the while attempting to oversee construction on my house when I really have no idea what they are doing or if they way they are doing it is the way it is supposed to be done. Therefore I must trust that everything will be completed before the impending deadline rears its ugly little head.

That’s not mentioning the roaring battle to reclaim my house from these little mice that have decided to make my home theirs. For months we have been attempting stay alive traps that you then go off and release them somewhere. However, I am fairly sure that the same pesky mouse we released down the street has made its wormy way back in. So, after one of our little rodent squatters decided to poke its little head out of our stove and into our cooking food- we decided enough was enough. I am crossing my fingers and hoping that all the mice just go away and don’t end up in one of our no see traps or dead somewhere from poison. I honestly hate the idea of taking any type of life, but it is becoming a hazard to keep the furry little critters around.

Anyways, I am finding that as I write out my testimony of how to I came to be the person I am and the mess that YHVH brought me out of I am in awe. After typing the first couple entries I just started bawling. I was so incredibly grateful that I have the life I have now and that with my Papa I was able to overcome what I was certain would be the death of me. It makes you so much more grateful to be alive when you realize how close you were to simply not existing.

I feel like I am getting off topic, but at the same time there is no set topic. I guess I don’t really know the purpose of this post except maybe to capture some of those wandering thoughts before they too disappear forever.

It was interesting, it wasn’t Yom Kippur that made me decide to share my story, but it helped cement the fact I needed to. For those of you that don’t know, Yom Kippur is a day of atonement and reflection as well as a day of celebration for what Yashua has done for us.

So, I was fasting as is custom, but I didn’t feel satisfied with that. I felt like there needed to be more that I was missing something vitally important. So, I had a discussion with my brother about it and we talked for a bit and in the end I felt a little more placated, but still a bit unease. It wasn’t until I was driving into work, that I realized during the discussion I was having, I was quoting scripture right and left without having to think about it- it was just coming naturally.

That’s when it hit me: Yom Kippur is about self improvement realizing where you are doing better, where you are lacking and taking the path towards improvement. I was happy with my growth from last year and hope to grow even greater in the time to come and in the now.

Creating Understanding: Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah, the start of a new year. I have never really looked deeper into this holiday. Never really attempted to understand its significance or importance. I was told it was a day of reflection and repentance and took it as that. However, I decided accepting what others have told me will not satisfy me. So, I set out to find my own answers.

It is widely believed that on Rosh Hashanah YHVH opens the book of life and the book of death and that between then and Yom Kippur He decides whether or not your name will be written in the book. So it is in that time that people repent for all the sins that they have made and promise to be a better person. In the biblical times a sacrifice was to be made: “Speak onto the children of Israel, saying, in the seventh month, on the first day, ye shall have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing trumpets, a holy convocation. Ye shall not do servile work: but ye shall make an offering made by fire onto Yahweh.” –Leviticus 23:24-25

So, people focused on the last part, and made a sacrifice. It was a tradition to wave the life offering over your head as a way to have it represent all of your sins and then you would sacrifice the animal and your sins would be washed away.

However, now we have Yashua, who has already made the ultimate sacrifice to wipe away our sins. Therefore, there is no need to sacrifice animals any more. For Yashua is our representative with the Father.  We can repent, shed our sins, and start a new life with YHVH at any time; we need not wait for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur to be cleansed of our sins. You can choose to be a Son and walk as Yashua walked at any time.

Some believe that if you are really good between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur that your name will be written in the book of life and you are fine to do whatever you want the rest of the year until Rosh Hashanah comes back around. I do not believe this to be true. YHVH does not wish for people to revel in sin the whole year and only clean their act up for a few days out of fear and a twisted understanding of the word, only to fall back into their immorality.

We are to be cleaned and purified daily and walk in holiness constantly attaining for perfection. Walking closer and closer with YHVH and becoming more and more like Yashua. We should constantly be reflecting on who we are and where we are in our walk. It should be a natural thing to realize when we have strayed from the path and to eagerly come back running. It should be a constant journey- not just something done once a year.

With that part of the holiday out of the way, I turned my attention to other part of it: a memorial of trumpets and a meeting of holiness. What is this grand meeting and memorial for? After doing some research I realized that Rosh Hashanah is also celebrating the creation of the earth and the coronation of YHVH as King of the universe.

It is a day that we celebrate the crowning of the only true authority in existence.

I had never looked at it this way before. I had never really stopped to think that at some point everyman must choose to accept YHVH as their king or not. They must choose whether they will bend the knee and serve or if they will look for another master.

For me the choice is simple. I choose to accept YHVH as my only authority and almighty king. I choose to serve only one master with everything that is in me- mind, body, soul. I choose to celebrate joyfully that YHVH is a gracious and wonderful king to have.

I would like to share some words that helped to get me thinking: “On Rosh Hashanah, we devote two days to the search for the voice of authority we so deeply crave, for the king of the universe we have been seeking since our childhood. But don’t look for Him in the synagogue, in your prayerbook or in the rabbi’s speech. Look for Him in your deepest self: in the things that no one has to tell you, because you already know them absolutely; in the commitments to which you willingly submit, because you recognize them to be expressions of, rather than impositions upon, your true will.” By Yanki Tauber

So, yes, take the time to evaluate yourself and see if you like where you are. If you don’t, then change it. Check in on yourself often, sometimes life makes you think things that aren’t all that important are and you lose track of the good stuff. But also remember that there is a King waiting for you to decide to serve Him. Trust me; His authority is greater than anything this earth has to offer.

Now it is time to decide, how will you live this new year?