Stable in the Shaking
God is shaking everything that can be shaken:
Haggai 2:6-7 NKJV — “For thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Once more (it is a little while) I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land; ‘and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory,’ says the LORD of hosts.
Revelation 13:1 NKJV — Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name.
Revelation 13:11 NKJV — Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon.
The sea in this allegory is the shifting power of the political realm. The land is the seemingly more stable religious realm.
Jesus is a priest (land) and a king (sea). The antichrist is a political alternative to Yeshua and the false prophet a spiritual alternative to Yeshua. These will work in concert, not because of love, but rather common interest. Babylon. One language. One speech.
The shaking is the point. God shakes the sea. God shakes the dry land. Look, both are being shaken right now.
What you find as stable in the shaking will determine how these days turn out for you.
Yeshua is the only stable place to stand. He is the rock that remains in the flood... The place where your house is stable.
For the last 6 months my structures have all been shaken. For the last 28 years I've gotten up, gone to work, and come home almost every day. In 2002, God led me to start my own business. Rather than get up and go to work for someone else, I got up and went to work for myself. I set my own schedule, for the most part. This shook up so much of what I understood stability to look like. It was scary before it felt free. It was very disorienting.
What I mean is, simply driving across town to go to an office, put in my time, and receive a paycheck.... Day after day for years... It created a false sense of stability.
It was my habit, and that habit reinforced a world view that having my job was stability.
At the same time, I had seen my marriage nearly crash on the rocks of my own selfishness, and seen it healed by God. In that same time period, my kids were born, new challenges arose and old ones died... But that day to day grind made it feel mostly stable.
It wasn't stable. It was simply a structure I was in. When I began working for myself, I found a new freedom, and a new structure that became my stability. For years our business was very touch and go. We would often go months without getting paid, work was spotty. For one 6-month period in 2005 I didn't work at all!
But, God kept us. Shaking my sense of 9 to 5 stability taught me a whole new stability. It was risky, but I found it more stable in the end.
As the business grew, my sense of stability in work grew right alongside of it. It was no more stable than my job for someone else, or even initially working for myself in that touch-and-go shakiness. It was just a structure... A habit of spending time that gave me a sense of repeatability.
In the last 6 months God has turned this false sense of stability upside down. As we've been living in Israel for the last three months, it is tempting to find a habit, or structure that makes me feel stable. God is freeing me from this myth of stability.
The only unshakeable thing is Yeshua. COVID should have taught us all this, but we found new ways to make life feel normal, stable, secure.
This was, at least for me, a big mistake. Better would have been to embrace the instability of the world around us. Better would have been to embrace the stability only found at the throne of God.
Now, here in Israel, I've spent most of my days getting vision. This vision is much more stable than my day to day habits. The vision forms better habits... and that creates a whole different challenge: to not get caught up in the false sense of stability in the way we spend our time, even well. David's Tabernacle was a tent. David never saw praying as stability. He prayed because He knew the stable One.
The Biblical vision in the shaking of everything is to see Jesus is returning... right now. It would be worth Him shaking everything to see the Prince of Peace passing all understanding.
Jesus surely is coming. The cares of this life, carousing (searching for what we want out of life) and drunkenness (including spiritual dullness/inebriation) are a snare right now.
God is wanting to transition those that trust Him into a heavenly stability... One that is born from heavenly vision.
What structure of false stability is God shaking right now? You should be able to answer it if He truly is shaking everything.
Any vision formed from a false fleshy structure... Seeing the world through the lens of our own repetitions... will surely leave us confused.
I feel God inviting me to wait uncomfortably through the sifting and shaking of my stability so that I can focus on Him... What He looks like, what He is saying, what HE is doing right now.
I remember in COVID, the stability we found was in the prayer room, and mostly in the habit of the structure of it. This was a baby beginning. God wants my stability to be found in the prayer room, for sure, but in the vision of it, not the repetition of it. As He gives vision, and that forms habits, it is tempting to disconnect into the habit and away from the new vision and leading. This is the time to let go of earthly stability and step into the heavenly one.
He is surely coming. He is surely shaking everything. There is one place to find peace. Many will follow the antichrist and false prophet out of sheer habit... Sheer need to find stability in the most confusing transfer of power the earth has ever seen.
Don't let that be you. God, don't let that be me.
Luke 21:25-36 NKJV — “And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; “men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. “Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. “Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.” Then He spoke to them a parable: “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. “When they are already budding, you see and know for yourselves that summer is now near. “So you also, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near. “Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all things take place. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. “But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. “For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. “Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
Proverbs 3:5-7 NKJV — Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes;
Fear the LORD and depart from evil.
This Psalm preaches a lot easier than it lives. But, heaven only lives by this Psalm. God wants to make us ready for heaven.
This is the season to really let God take me all the way into faith.
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