Often it is not what is said that matters in our prayers, but what is unsaid… We ask God for help but we have no idea what that help might entail, and therefore we must trust Him to do the best, whatever that may be, and to answer the silent cry and groan of the heart. As John Bunyan said, “When you pray, rather let thy heart be without words than thy words be without heart.”

The late Henri Nouwen wrote, “I am beginning to see that much of praying is grieving,” since the confession of the truth when we “come to ourselves” (Luke 15:17) is often painful. When we pray to the LORD, however, it’s obvious that we are not imparting to Him any information, since the Master of the Universe knows all things. As King David wrote: ki ein milah bilshoni, hen, Adonai, yadati khulah: “For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, you know it altogether” (Psalm 139:4). Yeshua taught us to abstain from using “vain repetitions” in our prayers, since our Heavenly Father knows what we need before we ask Him (Matt. 6:7-8). True prayer is a means of reverent listening, or quieting ourselves, so that we might hear what the Spirit of God is saying… When we pray bekhol levavkha, with all our heart, we apprehend God’s glory and express our desire to Him. We are then able to intercede by means of the Spirit with “groanings too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26). In a sense our deepest prayer “aligns our groans” to those of His own heart…

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When you are tested, affirm your confidence. Spiritually speaking, the first step is to find hope… The Divine Light is seen by the eye of faith (עין האמונה), and therefore we find strength by trusting in God’s Presence, even though we cannot presently see Him (2 Cor. 4:18; 5:7). “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. Know Him in all your ways, and He will straighten your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil” (Prov. 3:5-7). Wait on the LORD and He will strengthen your heart….

We must remain steady as we fight the “good fight of faith.” This is the struggle against the lie that God does not care for us and that we are therefore abandoned and on our own. We must repudiate fear and boldly lay hold of the promises of God; we must take every thought captive to the reality of God’s love for us in Yeshua. As it is written, “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked come upon me to devour my flesh, when my adversaries and enemies attack me, they will totter and fall. Even if an army is deployed against me, I will not fear; even if war is rises against me, I will remain full of trust” (Psalm 27:1-3).

The Midrash says, “The Holy One Himself, as it were, made light for the upright. Thus it says, “The LORD is my light and my salvation” (Psalm 27:1) and “When I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me” (Micah 7:8). While I sit in darkness in this world, during these latter days before the promised return of Yeshua, when troubles may afflict me and lawlessness may abound – then God’s light will shine brighter still, for the LORD is gracious to all who put their hope in Him, and this favor and love will be manifest for me.

Read more “His Invincible Purposes…”

Sickness of the soul is just as serious as sickness of the body, and indeed many of our physical sicknesses come from being sick at heart – by living in fear or despair, or by allowing unresolved guilt or anger to destroy ourselves. The Scriptures state that just as a body can become sick with illness, so can the soul: “I said, ‘O LORD, be gracious to me; heal my soul (רְפָאָה נַפְשִׁי), for I have sinned against you.'”

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Note the connection between healing of the soul and the confession of sin in this verse. Often we are sick because of inner secrets that need to be brought to the light (1 John 1:9). “Therefore, confess (ἐξομολογέω, lit. ‘confess out’) your sins to one another and pray (εὔχομαι) for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person (i.e., tzaddik) works great power” (James 5:16). Being yashar – honest and upright – produces spiritual power and life. The word translated “pray” (euchomai) means to “wish (εὐχὴ) for oneself (or for another) the good.” Confession (ὁμολογία) means bringing yourself naked before the Divine Light to agree with the truth about who you are. Indeed, the word homologeo literally means “saying the same thing” – from ὁμός (same) and λόγος (word). We need to confess the truth if we are to be free from the pain of the past.

Followers of Yeshua are called to be healers (Luke 9:1). The most common word for healing in the New Testament is therapeuo (θεραπεύω), a word that means to serve, to care for, and to restore to health. Unlike showy ministers who draw crowds to demonstrate the power of miraculous “faith healing,” spiritual healers take the time to listen to others, to hear their pain, and to extend compassion and grace to them. They help open the inner eyes of the heart by extending hope and a new vision about what is real… Indeed, lasting healing focuses less on being cured than on finding a hope that will never die.

Postscript:  What eternal good would it do, after all, to be “cured” of some disease if a soul was not also delivered from the power of darkness and sin? What would such “healing” mean, in light of the truth of eternity? After all, if the evil one may afflict people with sickness, surely he may also remove it to keep a person in a state of bondage… Some people, after frantically searching for a cure to their sickness, finally must let go and accept that they are going to die… If they have come to real inner peace, if they hold hope of eternal life within them because of the message of Yeshua, then even though they might not be physically “cured” in this world of shadows, they are indeed forever “healed” for life in the “high country” of the world to come…

In our Torah portion for this Shabbat (i.e., parashat Terumah), God provides instructions about creating the great “Ark of the Covenant” (אֲרוֹן בְּרִית־יְהוָה). Note that the Hebrew text says “they shall make an ark of acacia wood” (Exod. 25:10). Unlike other furnishings of the Tabernacle that were made by Betzalel, the text uses the plural verb here: “they shall make an ark” (וְעָשׂוּ אֲרוֹן), which implies that every person had a part in upholding the Torah. More – each person had a part in the place of blood atonement offered upon the kapporet – the cover of the Ark – which again symbolizes that Yeshua offered his life for the sins of all who would trust in him (1 John 2:2).

Note further that the Ark’s dimensions were given in fractional measurements, “half-cubits” used to describe its length, width, and height, as we read: “They shall make an ark of acacia wood (עֲצֵי שִׁטִּים); two cubits and a half (וָחֵצִי) shall be its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height” (Exod. 25:10). The sages comment that the “half-cubit” is symbolic of our fractional understanding, alluding to mystery and even paradox. “You shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and outside shall you overlay it, and you shall make on it a crown of gold (זֵר זָהָב) around it” (Exod. 25:11). The heart of the Tabernacle held the law of God, a picture of Yeshua who bore the law of God within his heart (Matt. 5:17-18). And though the Ark was made of wood from the common thorntree, it was covered inside and out with pure gold and bore a “crown” where the sacrificial blood was offered for atonement, a picture of Yeshua who clothed himself in our humanity, bore the crown of thorns, and shed his blood for our eternal atonement (Heb. 9:12).

Read more “Mystery and Mercy…”