Make Room for Your Miracle (4 page)

Mother had done the embroidery work on the collar, a beautiful mosaic patterned in ochre and red. Father had given her twelve silver coins as part of my dowry. The coins would be fastened onto my wedding veil and hang down just over the line of my brow.

Now the coins and the rest of my dowry were packed and waiting in silent tribute to my deepest longings and desires.

My fingers drummed the cool stone until the sound of Father’s footsteps on the stair focused my wandering thoughts. He had taken supper elsewhere and was late returning.

“Good evening, daughter,” Father said, approaching me.

I kissed him on both sides of his face.

“Good evening, Father,” I said in turn.

We stood for a moment in silence. I sensed that he had something important to tell me, so I waited. Watchtowers winked at us here and there; a whip-poor-will called in the distance.

“The king is probably strolling around on his roof right now surveying his kingdom,” he said, half to himself. “One of these days he or that wife of his will tumble from their roof without walls.”

So that was where he had been. Discussing politics with the men in the city.

Father turned and looked at me, his dark eyes sparkling. Then he rubbed his hands together like a tax collector and said, “It’s done.”

My mind went blank. Done? Had I missed something?

“Done, Father?” I replied.

“I have taken care that your inheritance is secure. It is a good match, daughter. You will be married, soon.”

I cleared my throat and caught my breath. I had waited so very long to hear those words, and now that it had happened I was gripped with uncertainty. He had chosen me a husband, and I had not a notion of who it was. He had never spoken to me once about it before this night.

What manner of husband had he chosen? Was he . . . ugly?

I knew I could depend on the kind of character he would have. Father was a wise and kindhearted man. He was also shrewd in business and not about to waste the estate he had built. All this would be mine as he so often reminded me. But all this and an ugly husband were another matter!

Dread stole over me. A dozen frightful images paraded before my eyes.

“Do I know him, Father?” My heart raced as though it were thumping its way right up my neck and would soon plop out. I imagined myself the daughter of Jepthah—my virginity sacrificed upon the altar of my father’s oath. I briefly pictured myself spending the next weeks in mourning among my maiden friends, wandering about on the hills till the day of my doom.

It seemed a lifetime had passed before his answer came.

“Joktan, our neighbor, from my cousin’s clan will be your husband. He has his own inheritance and is a fine farmer. A nobleman. You will have high standing among our people. Together with his land your sons will inherit well.”

Joktan! The handsome widower who caught the eye of every maiden heart in Shunem.

My eyes went heavenward. I must have done something right.

While Father spoke on about good character and high standing, stars of happiness danced before my eyes.

And before the silvery smile of the moon had twice traversed the night sky, friends of the bridegroom lit the way for Joktan to come and take me from my father’s house. As we stood under the
huppa
I shone with radiant womanhood. But as the words were said over us I confess that I grew more and more anxious. Behind my veil with its jingling coins I sent my eyes sideways to view my new husband; the regal head seemed now one of an aged stranger. The house on the other side of our wall, the house to which I was being carried that night, seemed as though it was on the other side of the world.

Influential persons paid homage and toasted our covenant. We received a pair of glazed jars with fitted lids, a linen coverlet, coin and a vermilion-patterned carpet from the East. The wedding guests ate and drank long after the bride and groom were carried home like heroes to begin their new life together.

But as the party rejoiced into the night I lay awake in a strange bed; Joktan slept beside me at last. I had thrown my whole heart into the decision to marry, but my comprehension of this new life suddenly seemed weak and frail. I prayed that God Almighty would calm my fearful heart.

The next morning I averted my eyes when the servants brought water for us to wash. The linen from the wedding bed was presented to my mother-in-law, and moments later I heard her trilling tongue announcing to the whole world that the marriage had been consummated and I had been a virgin.

After we broke fast I waited anxiously for my husband to go out as Father did every day. I would be left with the women and would find an excuse to visit Mother. I wanted desperately to go home. But Joktan did not go out. He stayed two days and nights hardly leaving my side and then Shabbat started. By the end of my first week of marriage I expected that I would have a protruding tummy.

And so did everyone else. A month passed. Then two. Their eyes were all watching me, the eyes of my mother-in-law and the household and all the members of our clan in Shunem. They were waiting for the news. News that I was pregnant. News that never came.

One year passed, and then two. Then another and another. I went from hope to impatience to anger.

Why was this happening to me?

Sometimes the small decisions are as important as the ones that seem great. The decision to take time for someone in need, the decision to put a little something aside when all the world is spending itself in a frenzy, the decision to believe when everything says liar.

There are some decisions that seem to be made for you. The want of a son, the urge to hold a daughter was my chief desire, but with all my strength I could not will it to happen. I was righteous by all the means I knew. I kept within our codes. We traveled to Carmel on the New Moon and Shabbat to present our offerings and hear the prophets, but still the certain blessing I longed for, that blessing that would confirm me as a wife and mother in Israel, did not come. My hope began to lag behind. It lagged so long that eventually I ceased even to turn and look for its outline on the horizon. My supreme desire had eluded me. So eventually I just left it back there and thought it had slipped away. More years passed. We made our bread and did our weaving, and I became a useful nobleman’s wife except for one thing. The most important thing.

How does one cast away that part of one’s own body that causes offense? My womb, that part of my self created by Jehovah, refused its own destiny. Self-loathing ceased to wrestle with anger. Shame ceased to lift its weeping head. The path of my longings led only to the Valley of Baca.

It became my settled state of mind that there was nothing in this world I could have done to change the fact that I was barren. I turned my grief outward in compassion for those who suffered. I especially pitied persons who were ostracized because of an infirmity.

That was all because of mine.

And We Listen . . .

Because of the completed work of Calvary, our view of wilderness experiences can be revolutionized. As God carries us through the wilderness, He does a work of transformation in our lives, healing us, tearing down old idols from our hearts, revealing our inheritance, ultimately removing everything that might block us from making room for the Source of miracles.

The Bible gives us a powerful “wilderness experience” story in the Exodus adventures of the children of Israel. They left Egypt behind. They had a wonderful deliverance. They had a great victory. And then God led them into the wilderness. Were they following the Lord? Yes. Did they miss the Lord? No. They were following the Lord. But they looked around and said, “Hey, guys, this looks like a wilderness. It feels like a wilderness. It
is
a wilderness!”

Now the children of Israel had been living for four hundred years as slaves—and they thought and spoke like slaves instead of thinking and speaking and believing like kings and priests of the living God. They did not understand their destiny.

So with them, as with us, God uses the wilderness experiences to give them revelation and bring them into their possession. Or let us put that another way: If the Lord loves you, He will allow you to go by the bitter pool.

And at that time, it hurts. For some it may be a painful marriage, or a hurtful separation or divorce. For some the bitter pool might be growing up with an alcoholic father who abused your mother or abused you. For some, the bitter pool might be a sickness your child has had. The temptation during these wilderness experiences is to become victims of bad theology. We might start to think: “If God loved me, this would never have happened.” Don’t fall into bad theology! Always, for every bitter pool, there is sweetening, there is healing. When the people of Israel increased their grumbling, Moses turned to the living God for help. God showed him a tree—probably a piece of wood—that Moses threw into the pool. Immediately the water was totally healed and those millions of people could drink.

Stand Fast in Your Decision

Wilderness? Bitter pool? Testing? Why should this be? In order to see our response. God wants to temper our faith. He wants to take that decision to follow Him and make it a foundation upon which to build something weighty. For that to happen, it must be tested. This willingness to let hope die is a journey that we call “faith beyond faith.” Surface faith is not tested faith. It is only through trials that your roots are able to go deep. If you do not want to be challenged, your faith will have very shallow roots. And if you start allowing indecision to settle in, it will grow like a weed and choke out your faith. It will turn you from your decision, and it will turn you from your promise.

Abraham went out “not knowing.” Now he knew that God had spoken and said, “Abraham, I’m calling you out of the land of your father into a land that you do not know, and I will make your descendants like the stars of the heaven.” That promise was fulfilled in Isaac. So where did Ishmael come from? Abraham began to waver on his decision, and indecision settled in and he cooperated with Sarah’s plan to bypass God’s plan. Expect your decision to be tested once you have decided for the Lord.

Israel had a promise: You will eat from vineyards you have not planted; you will drink from wells you have not dug. But that first generation wavered when they stood on the threshold of their promise and died in the wilderness. God tested His people in the wilderness where no natural circumstance could provide. They had the opportunity there to understand and grow in their dependence on God and God alone.

Have you ever said, “I’ve given up all hope”? You can get to a place of hope, hope that is eternal, hope that is real, hope that is in Christ Jesus. You can get there. But the front door is often tribulation. Scripture says that God gives the valley of Achor (trouble) for a door of hope (see Hosea 2:15).

Jesus taught us this. He understood by revelation and the Scriptures who He was. Once He stepped forth publicly to embrace His calling of Messiah He was immediately led of the Spirit into the wilderness. He fasted for forty days and forty nights—went without everything. After this, He was hungry, and that is when temptation came. The temptation to quit is not going to come when we are fat and sassy! No, when our longings come in response to the call of God, the way is often through the wilderness.

This is the mystery of faith. We must be vulnerable to having our hopes dashed. The way of victory for Jesus was the crushing way of the cross. But because He was willing to drink from that bitter pool in order to taste the joy set before Him, we can believe that God will nourish us in our own wilderness experiences.

Israel had shoes that did not wear out, clothes that did not wear out. Their bread literally fell out of heaven every day. There were no vineyards; there were no plants growing things for them to eat. It was a barren, hot, dry land. So the Spirit of God hovered over them—the cloud that shielded them from the desert heat by day, and the pillar of fire that kept them warm at night. Everybody knows that in the desert it is hot in the daytime and cold at night. Impossible circumstances, but the Lamb provided. Those who responded in faith entered the Promised Land.

Testing is an essential part of God’s preparations for His eternal helper—that Bride who will be with Him on the throne, who will stand with the Lamb in the midst of the seven lampstands, who will abide in that place of living revelation.

Thank God for the wilderness.

Pass On through the Valley

“As they pass through the Valley of Baca [weeping], they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools” (Psalm 84:6, NIV). If you are part of God’s people, you have to pass on occasions through the Valley of Baca, the place of tears. But you know what? It says
pass through
. It does not say you are going to camp there permanently. You do not have to stay there.

Sometimes we allow the pressure to cloud our vision, and we begin to doubt our destination in God. And when that happens we tend to try to settle down in the valley. Those who never choose the right perspective can be destroyed there by the enemy. Things will be over more quickly if we understand that this valley is a testing ground, and we are just passing through.

If you feel as though you just do not have the faith you need to keep moving presently in your life, then realize that “faith comes.” How? The Bible says that faith comes by hearing and hearing, listening to, receiving, the Living Word of God (see Romans 10:17). It is the Living Word that pours into us this life of faith. You are part of a supernatural race, a sacred secret, hidden for generations past and now made manifest by the Spirit.

The Bible is like a mirror. You can look into it and, by His mercy, God will allow you to see the truth about yourself. Sometimes it looks good, sometimes not so good, but that is how it works. We like to say that the Bible reads us! The Author will peek over our shoulders and show those old traits, those old characteristics, that old nature, that old image of that old man who inherited corruption through our great, great, great, great, great-granddaddy and grandmamma, Adam and Eve. But it does not end there. His Word is living and active and full of power.