This is a repost from last year. Rosh Hashanah, or the Feast of Trumpets, is approaching us again. And once again this year I find myself wondering, “what if?” This year the feast begins at sundown on Wednesday, September 8th and runs through Friday, September 10th. I encourage you to seriously consider- would we be ready? What if?

Our pastor has been doing a series about the signs that we are in the last days. I’ve been reading Joel Rosenberg’s books. I’m studying Revelation during my quiet times. [and this year we're going through the Revelation study!] :)

I know I’ve said it before, but really… it sure seems like Christ’s return could be soon. SOON.

Here’s another tidbit for you to chew on. In his fascinating booklet The Seven Feasts of Israel, Zola Levitt looks at the Old Testament feasts and their significance in the life of Christ.

[In order of their celebration in the Hebrew calendar]

1. Passover – remembrance that God had saved the Hebrew people out of Egypt and that the angel of death had passed over them if they were marked by the blood of the lamb; Jesus, the ultimate sacrificial Lamb, was crucified on Passover!

2. Unleavened Bread – begins on the night after Passover; the Jews were to eat only unleavened bread during Passover week. In the Bible, leaven (yeast) is associated with sin and evil – eating unleavened bread symbolized a holy life. In John 12:24, Jesus alludes to the image of bread for Himself again and says, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” Guess what? Jesus was buried on the feast of unleavened bread, which began at sundown after his crucifixion!

3. First Fruits – held on the Sunday following Unleavened Bread. The Israelites brought the early crops to the Temple – recognizing that God was the provider of what had already been harvested and what was still to come. What happened the Sunday after Jesus’ crucifixion and burial? Let me quote from Levitt:

Jesus of course, celebrated the Sunday of the week of His crucifixion by rising from the dead. It was not some other day He chose but the very day of First Fruits, of course, just as He had performed on Passover and Unleavened Bread, each with the appropriate action. Jesus even presented His proper First Fruits offering to the Father. Graves were opened and dead people rose and were seen after His resurrection in Jerusalem (Matt 27:53). The Lord, not unlike a Jewish planter, gratefully showed the Father the early crops of what will be a magnificent harvest later on.

OOOH! That gives me goosebumps. (And I always wondered what the deal was about the people who were resurrected after Jesus!!)

4. Pentecost – Fifty days after First Fruits, the feast of Pentecost was observed. Leviticus 23:17 indicates that the Israelites were to wave two loaves of bread that are equal in weight and baked with leaven before the Lord – “they are firstfruits unto the Lord.”

Remember, leaven is symbolic of sin. But they are firstfruits, so they are symbolic of redeemed, resurrected men. There are two parts of the church – Jew and Gentile! Again from Levitt:

The fulfillment [of the Holy Spirit coming on Pentecost and the disciples seeing 3,000 people trust in Jesus] was exactly in keeping with the purpose of the feast… It must have been a major argument of the disciples following Pentecost, as they witnessed to the Jews, that the feasts had been fulfilled in remarkable fashion in that momentous year. Whatever they may have thought previously of the rustic teacher from Galilee, they certainly had to admit that it seemed more than coincidental that He was crucified on Passover, buried on Unleavened Bread, raised on First Fruits, and had sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

5. Feast of Trumpets – The first three feasts happen fairly close together during the spring (usually April); Pentecost is usually in late May or early June. Now there is a longer span of time until Trumpets, which is in September.

Ok, now hold on to your hats:

The trumpet was the signal for the field workers to come into the Temple. The high priest actually stood on the southwestern parapet of the Temple and blew the trumpet so that it could be heard in the surrounding fields. At that instant, the faithful would stop harvesting even if there were more crops to bring in, and leave immediately for the worship services.

Jesus used the imagery of workers in the harvest field on several occasions. The Jews He was speaking to obviously were familiar with the Feast of Trumpets. Do you know when the workers came in from the fields? At the last trumpet. Does that sound familiar?

Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
1 Cor. 15:51-52

The first four feasts were fulfilled on their exact days. It would be logical to expect the Rapture to occur on the Feast of Trumpets. (Not all Bible teachers agree on that, but it does make sense… we’re not being dogmatic here [who am I to be dogmatic? I am no expert!], just presenting something to chew on.)

This year, the Feast of Trumpets happens to be this coming weekend, officially beginning at sundown on the 18th. I wrote it on our calendar.

NP and I have been spending a lot of time talking about those dates marked off on the kitchen calendar. [And they seriously blew a shofar and sang a Hebrew prayer that talked about "wait until next week..." during the worship service this Sunday. Goosebumps does not begin to describe!] What if…

He might come in 4 days or 4 years or 20 years. But what if it’s now? What if we knew this was our last week?

Who would you talk to this week?
What would you write on your blog or post on facebook?
How would you pray?

Are we ready?

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
Matthew 24:42-44

As we enter the Thanksgiving season, I thought it would be appropriate to reflect briefly on true gratitude. Tomorrow we will continue the “understanding pain and loss” series, and I think it is important to spend time during this series emphasizing that thanksgiving is not an emotion. Giving thanks with grateful hearts is not something that is segregated to the “good” and easy times in our lives, when everyone is healthy, all our wants and needs are met, and everyone is at peace with one another. Truly, those blessings should inspire a heart of gratitude… but what about when we’re sitting in the ashes of life?

Last Thanksgiving I wrote this post, part of which still echoes in my head from time to time:

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Watching and listening to people this time of year intrigues me. In the celebration of Thanksgiving, we set aside time to thank our Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, our Abba Father for all that He has blessed us with. Sadly, we have turned this amazing opportunity to pause and corporately thank Him into a glutenous feast with a cardboard turkey centerpiece. If you are a crafty-Martha-Stewart-type, perhaps your centerpiece is a cornucopia handcrafted out of fresh picked willow branches, but nevertheless, we often miss the point.

Even in our attempts to make this holiday more meaningful, it often seems to ring hollow. Go around the table and say what you are thankful for – “my family,” “my job,” “this house,” whatever. Not that it’s bad to be thankful for these things, but are we truly thankful people? What about the little things? What about the painful things? Are we thankful for those?

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I wrote this post the day before Thanksgiving. The next morning we found out that my mother-in-law was dying of cancer – you can read my next post here. Needless to say, last Thanksgiving was not a lighthearted romp through the hay with our handmade turkeys.

This year has been hard. In many ways that I cannot fully explain, it has been hard. I am tired of death. I am tired of evil. I am tired.

What will be shared at your Thanksgiving table this year? I do hope that you can thank God for health and your family and your job and your house. But what about when we can’t thank God for health because we or those we love are sick and dying? What about when we can’t thank God for our job because we don’t have one? What about when we can’t thank God for our house because it was foreclosed on? What about the painful things? Are we thankful for those?

True gratitude cannot be based on our circumstances. True gratitude must come from a deep rooted understanding of the grace and mercy of God. From seeing that He is all I really want, seeing that He is all I really need after all. From seeing that knowing God is the true treasure. My friend Julie shared her true gratitude through pain in her life yesterday – I’d encourage you to read her post!

I am deeply grateful for my family, my husband’s job, my house, my church, etc. But if all of those things are burned away and I am left sitting in the ashes, will I be grateful that neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus my Lord?

He is good. Even when life is not, He is good.

[This is another highly recommended song from Nicole Nordeman!]

Image from http://www.freefoto.com

It has been a rough week or so at our house. Talking to my sister and other friends with kids, apparently there is some sort of highly contagious virus going around that causes erratic misbehavior in our children! LB seems to be working on some teeth, but I have no idea what AG’s excuse could be! ;)

My husband has been putting in some long hours with work for a variety of non-bloggable reasons, and I’m feeling drained. Packing up the children and sending them to Grandma’s house has been a tempting idea!!

Last night and today, in the midst of insanity and ill-temper from all three of us, I had some precious snippets of conversation with AG. These are the little moments that remind me that the sacrifice of finances (and occasionally sanity) to stay home are so, SO worth it.

Last night as I sang to her, the John 3:16 song from Hide ‘em in Your Heart has been a favorite recently, we again discussed perish. [Remember last year's "perish" discussion??] Then she asked, “Why does it say, ‘whoever believes in Him?’” So, we went through the basics of salvation again. She smiled and said, “those were the two things I couldn’t remember – perish, and ‘whoever believes.’”

Today we were coloring a picture of Adam (don’t you love his blue hair??) and Eve eating the forbidden fruit in our God Created the Dinosaurs book, which will be reviewed in the very near future. It had been an unpleasant morning, and I was simply trying to occupy her long enough to limp us along to naptime! But in that little window of time, she asked why it was wrong for them to eat the fruit; aren’t apples green light foods?! We talked about how they chose to disobey God, and as she picked out her next crayon she seriously said, “but He still loved them, even though they disobeyed.” Ah, the fruit of many instances of discipline and consequences, while discussing God’s unconditional love.

We then discussed how sin affected the earth – she thought that the picture we were coloring was “a little scary” because Adam and Eve were eating the fruit (scary, indeed!), the serpent was in it, and there was a dinosaur. From there we got onto the discussion that dinosaurs weren’t scary when God made them – they ate plants, and wouldn’t hurt people or other animals. Sin changed everything. When I said, “when sin came into the world,” she paused and said, “did it poke a hole in it or something? How did it get in?” Stinking adorable, and great ground for some theological discussion, too!

In the midst of the craziness, we have little golden moments. Moments while we sing a lullaby, moments when we’re disciplining, moments when we’re coloring… moments to teach our children the miraculous truth of a holy God who loves them and has moved heaven and earth to buy us back from our slavery to sin.

So, to my fellow drained mommy’s, this song is for you – I needed to listen to this after a very long day! In the midst of time outs and temper tantrums and 17 month olds who insist on hitting their sisters and obstinately disobeying :), we have a big job to do with immeasurable worth. No one else knows what you put up with today, how you struggled to keep your temper in check, how you wanted to go back to bed and let the kids tear the house apart, how you cried in the kitchen by yourself in frustration, how you kissed a boo-boo, how you taught your child about math or science or a new word, how you triumphed over that long-awaited potty training victory… but God knows.

Who cares that it’s not really mother’s day? :) This is a tough job 365 days a year, but it’s worth it. Keep up the good work.

The name of this blog is “run the earth, watch the sky” for a reason. God has entrusted me with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for an unknown number of years to “run the earth.” He has given me certain relationships, gifts, abilities, opportunities, and resources to use not for my own fame and comfort, but to lift up His name, serve and obey Him, and honor Him as I enjoy the grand gifts He has given.

And while I am working and playing and serving, I am watching the sky. This life is not the end. Jesus has promised to come back for us, that He is preparing a place for us, to bring us to our true home where we will see Him face to face. Reading the two books that I posted reviews about today (Epicenter and Creation and the Second Coming) have the realities of Christ’s return for His Church and God’s impending tribulation judgements on the earth fresh in my mind.

I remember sometime in elementary or middle school sitting at my little desk in my room and writing a letter for someone to find after we disappeared in the rapture! I’m sure that sounds incredibly hokey to many of you reading this, but it was an expression of my deep faith that Jesus really was going to return for us someday and that many around us would be left behind and desperate for answers.

And now here I am 15-20 years later, sitting at my desk and wanting to write a letter for those who don’t understand, who will someday be left behind, who are facing the wrath of God against their sin.

Dear friends, this is real. I know that some of you will write me off as a lunatic right now, and that’s fine. But God has entrusted me with this platform to write, knowledge of His Word to share, resources to learn from and point others to, and I would be deeply remiss to not use it.

Hebrews 11:13-16 speaks of the heroes of the faith and says, “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”

This world is not my home. I’m looking forward to a my true home, the city God has prepared for those who love Him. I pray that you will join me there – what a day that will be! I love this song by Michael Card – I’m not a huge fan of all of these pictures (how can we do it justice?), but please take a few minutes to imagine the better country with me.