I am no movie reviewer, but I can tell if I like a movie or not. We went to War Room on Friday night, just RM and me, and we left very inspired. The writing for the movie isn't fantastic, but the premise is - pray, pray, pray and be on guard for the spiritual warfare that is all around us. That is pretty much it in a nutshell.
Though we've always prayed and always been aware of spiritual warfare, it was a great wake up call to be even more on guard. Specifically, the movie has the wife praying for her husband. I do pray for RM all the time, but again, it was so good to be reminded to be even more specific in my prayers, more intentional, more disciplined and praying against the enemy in his life who longs to have him frustrated, confused, depressed - all things so many men battle.
The last few mornings have seen me up as soon as I am awoken. It has been earlier than usual, but I figure, if I'm being woken up, I better get up. So down I go. I had been keeping a separate journal alongside the blog, but with the busy summer days, I hadn't been writing in it for a while. In that journal I did record all my prayers, wrote them all out. I picked it up again and starting writing feverishly! I can see how Satan tried to sideline those prayers, even the writing, as the pen is one of God's weapons.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day - gorgeous weather. We had slowly but surely been bringing in the grapes. We froze many liters of grape juice and even some bags of grapes to be made into pies at a later date. But yesterday, knowing the weather is going to turn cold soon, we gave it one last effort. That morning, when I'd gotten up to read and pray, I couldn't believe what I read in the Bible. Sometimes I want to skip over certain books, like Leviticus - how in the world can they apply to me when it's talking about leprosy or certain skin conditions, but I read it anyway thinking there must be something. So there I was, in Leviticus 25,and sure enough it was about grapes, couldn't believe it....
"For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits..."
We haven't exactly been pruning the vineyard ourselves until this year, but still, there were so many neat parallels in our lives in this verse. We've been in Niagara now for 6 years - this was the year we pruned our vineyard for the first time, in our 6th year, and this was the year we were literally gathering in our fruits. It was a great picture.
I read on. I've discovered the Bible uses the number seven a lot. In the 7th year, often there is freedom from bondage. For example, in Exodus 21:2 it says, "When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing....". There is also a time of rest, such as on the Sabbath, or a time to let the land rest in the seventh year.
Still in the passage following Leviticus 25, it goes on to describe the Year of Jubilee. After seven periods of seven years, 49 years, they celebrate the Year of Jubilee. Verse 10 says it best, "And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants." The Israelites are not supposed to plant in the 7th year which makes no sense as they will need to eat, but Bible addresses that question....." And if you say, 'What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?' I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years."
Ok, so what am I getting at..... all I know is we are in the seventh year now of going at this mortgage debt thing. We calculate it based on when we decided to sell our house back in the city, build a new one to sell and kill debt. We don't know if we start the debt clock from the time we listed or when we sold or even when we moved here, but we know, generally speaking it was 6 years ago, just entering our 7th. We are no different than the Israelites in that we haven't been perfect in our debt resolve for the entire 6 years. We have had really good months where we are extremely diligent and then really bad months where we have been tired of being good, but all in all, we've stayed focused, knowing that we long for freedom from debt.
We just wonder, could it, might it, possibly, hopefully, be this year? We have no reason to believe it will be. There are no big contracts out there, no obvious things that we know of to suspect it could be this year. When the Israelites ask, "What shall we eat if we aren't supposed to sow or gather?" God's answer is so simple, "I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year." Am I allowed to pray that? I think so?! The reason I like God's answer so much is that it really has nothing to do with anything that makes sense - the only reason they'll eat is because God makes their crop produce enough for three years. It wasn't anything they would do. I have a funny feeling that's how it would probably be with us, too - it would only be because God would command His blessing on us. We will stay faithful in what He has required of us, but really any work we've ever gotten is entirely because God has chosen to bless us. So, will this year be any different than any other? We don't know except that we have seen how God uses numbers in the Bible to represent certain things and in the case of the seventh year, it can mean freedom, rest, liberty. One of the requirements in the Year of Jubilee is that they are to proclaim "liberty throughout the land". Would I be willing to do that? YES! A RESOUNDING YES!!!!
I know that in writing this, I may be setting myself up for a fall as God is not a genie nor is it a lucky number thing as in Vegas. He may have a completely different plan, better than I can imagine. He may still keep us in prison for awhile longer, or even for my entire life as He knows I may just need to stay in a position of humility for that length of time. I have read of people who have taken longer than 7 years to get out of debt. However, I still wanted to write about it, to document what I'm learning as I read and study. I will proclaim whatever God wants me to proclaim, not just freedom from debt. He is about much more than just me and my little debt issue. That's actually one of the greatest things I've discovered as I've been writing about this for two years now. As I've written many times a week, most of the time it isn't about money or getting out of debt. I've found I've written more about the faithfulness of God to our family and how He is such a personal and loving God than I've written about debt strategy.
Interestingly, the number 3 is also in the Bible - it is the 3rd day where we see Christ risen from the dead. Victory over death. I started blogging about all of this almost exactly 2 years ago. I'm now going into my 3rd year of blogging. How I long to see victory in my 3rd year of writing! So, it's a big year potentially ahead of us, our 7th year of attempting to kill debt and the 3rd year of writing about it, coincidence? Don't know. I'm certainly aware that I need to remain faithful no matter what happens, but as I've written before, until God stops me from praying for freedom, I will keep praying and keep trying to be as good with the finances He's blessed us with as possible. Just like in the movie Facing the Giants, right before the big final game of the season, the players decide what they're reaction will be, "We'll praise Him if we win and we'll praise Him if we lose." This is no football game, but the idea still applies. We, too, will praise Him if He frees us this year and we'll praise Him if He doesn't.
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