- Jul 11, 2022
- 3 min read
“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;
Get your evil deeds out of My sight.
Stop doing evil,
Learn to do good.
Seek justice,
Rebuke the ruthless,
Defend the fatherless,
Plead for the [rights of the] widow [in court].”
Isaiah 1:16-17 AMP
Embrace the Within.
Shavua tov. I think a lot of us are preoccupied with what everyone else is doing and not what we are doing. That statement in itself implies that I am also preoccupied with what others are doing BUT I am also much more worried about what I am doing. Fourteen days ago I started this path because I was fearfully concerned about what I was doing and how what I was doing was going to impact my family. And that is how I started down this path of failure and discovery to arrive at the palace I am today that is leading even further into the future.
BUT though I am very concerned about my journey, I still have compassion and understanding for what everyone else is going through as well. I have seen and felt the emotional, financial, psychological, and spiritual torment that we have all seen and felt over the past fourteen days. None of this was our fault BUT all of this is still our problem. And we get to decide now where we go from there.
I was lucky during the fourteen days. I focused my energy on changing the situation around those circumstances I couldn’t control. I worked on doing whatever I could to make certain I was not going to be fearful again that I was not going to be able to eat. So, I learned and practiced what I learned to make my life what I wanted it to become. Some of us were too afraid, some of us were broke, some of us were broken, and some of us were apathetic. We all had a variety of excuses and still probably do for not getting our homes in order. There are many things we can blame or be ashamed about. If we are going to make change, though, we need to claim our power to make things different. And that power is from learning to do the right thing. As the prophet Isaiah brilliantly expresses in these lines from the opening of his prophetic work, “Stop doing evil,/Learn to do good.” Is there anything more simple and so complicated simultaneously?
Some of us have been trying to do good and some of us are covered in the dirt of evil. Getting clean is a journey just as arduous and complicated as getting dirty was easy and gradual. The longer we have been dirty, then the more difficult it will be to turn those ways aside and start working on cleanliness. Some of us don’t want to get clean because it is too much work. Eventually, you have to take ownership of your nephesh and decide whether you are going to live as God wants or live as you want. That voice will never get drowned away. That voice will never be eradicated from your mind. That voice will always be there to help bring you back to the grace and abundance that awaits the eternal you. If you listen long enough, if you listen closely, you can hear it as I did. And the most important, the greatest, the only true journey of your life can begin. Listen?
Peace to your home. Bless your being. The reign of God is now. Have the day you want. I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.