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The Footstool World (The Book of Mysteries – Day 20)

LIVING ON A FOOTSTOOL

Bible readers are likely to have heard the phrase (from God) that “Heaven is my throne, and the Earth is my footstool.”

The Hebrew word Kavode denotes both “weight” and “glory”…so Heaven is where the weight and glory of God is (hence the throne)…so what is the footstool?

When we put up our feet to relax, we use a footstool.  Our weight still rests on the chair we are sitting on but our feet are up.  The footstool does not hold our weight (and glory) up at all…it simply holds our feet up.  So, we need to approach the Earth in this way.  Despite it’s beauty, the Earth is merely a footstool.  The problem are footstool problems, the joys are footstool joys, the issues are footstool issues.

By understanding that the Earth, and by this, all our experiences within it, are at the level of a footstool, we understand their place in our lives.

It is not that we are to be trivial about the experiences in our world.  Indeed, we are called upon to act in this world, even though we are not OF this world.  We need to respond to others, be involved in solving the issues and problems around us, etc.  But, our rest (just as we see God resting his feet on the footstool) comes from our knowledge that the Earth is merely a footstool.  It pales to the glory that is heaven, which supports the weight and glory of God.

So, when we are down and pressed by the miseries of the world, we need to keep this in perspective.   There is a larger and much more important reality than the one we experience here on Earth.

For me, this highlights the need I have to keep perspective when it comes to the challenges I face…personally and professionally.  I have a tendency to get caught up on the conflicts and frustrations.  As a child of God, I can avail myself to this perception that “all this shall pass”.  As I said, it does not cause me to disengage, but to do so with a different attitude, with a different need for outcomes (potentially for very little need for outcomes, or at least outcomes of my own choosing.)

PRACTICE

The Mission outlined today speaks to PRACTICE.  A means to “act accordingly”.  In my original perspective on this within the PRACTICE acronym, this was supposed to denote that we should act in a way that identifies as Christians and Children of God.  From the “footstool perspective” we should also (not instead of) act according to our knowledge that the Glory of God does not rest on this Earth, we are the footstool  The issues and challenges are not the focus and purpose of our being, but to glorify God, even though our efforts are manifest on a footstool.

WALKING ON THE EARTH

Another way of interpreting the footstool Earth is to think of the Earth as the place where God has placed his feet.  Essentially, he has walked the Earth, in the form of Jesus.  His feet have been on the Earth.  So, the scripture that pictures God in Heaven with his feet on his footstool, Earth, supports the notion that God STILL walks the Earth, his feet are still on the Earth.

So, God could still be among us, taking on flesh and existing in the World.

Years ago I considered the notion of Jesus coming to Earth in this way.  The people of the world cried out to God and complained.  “How can we live by these laws, be good, among all the temptations of the world and the ever presence of evil?”  Some may even have said that God may be omnipotent, but he does not know what it is like to live as a human being.

We may see this sort of statement coming from many people we encounter.  We don’t understand them because we have not “walked in their shoes.”  This has some basis in reality.  Even for God!  As the omnipotent God he DID understand the lived human experience, but this was not enough for the people to believe that he understood our perspective.

To appease this demand, and to accomplish his greatest gift to us (salvation), he made himself human and experienced a life as being a human.  While on Earth he truly experienced the “good, bad, and ugly” of human life.  While being fully God and fully human on Earth, God did forgo much of his divine powers.

In Philippians 2:5-8 we learn that Jesus “emptied himself” and made himself into the likeness of man.  While there is ample debate about how God would “set aside” his divine powers or even if Jesus was aware that he was God (I think he was, at one point in his life), it is clear that he did not act or fully express his powers of being God while he was also Man.  He fully lived the life of a sinless human, both as an example to our own lives, and to prepare himself to be the ultimate, unblemished sacrifice for us.

So…God exists today, and as a continual reminder to US (not to Him), he keeps his feet on the footstool of Earth!  He knows what it is like, and he reminds us in the passage of where is glory (and his feet) rest.

The Mission: Today, see the world and everything in it in a new way, as the footstool world, with only footstool issues, and live accordingly

Mark K.

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Yeshua (The Book of Mysteries – Day 18)

The Hebrew word Yeshua means many things.  It means to rescue, to help, to defend, to preserve, to make free, to attain victory, to bring to safety, to heal, and to save.

Through translations Yeshua became the word Jesus.  In Jewish tradition, God “becomes” our Yeshua.  In Christian tradition, this is literally God becoming Jesus (as was Jesus’ claim, to be fully man and fully God on Earth.)

All of the things that Yeshua (Jesus) means are the true deep needs of humans.  These are the things that we yearn for, work for, create for, etc.  Yet, all of these things are answered with one word (person), Yeshua, or Jesus.  Jesus is the thing that we all long for.

Consider this list of needs.  In Psychology, there is a very popular “Hierarchy of Needs” put forth by Abram Maslow.

If the needs met by Jesus are “help, defend, preserve, free, victory, safety, healing, and salvation” could these two actually be aligned?  Could they be aligned to the approach to faith made by new followers of Jesus?  (That JUST occurred to me!)

For now, Jesus is the answer to ALL the needs we have.  We can approach Jesus in all of these ways to meet all of our needs.  The world is full o distractions that allow us to think that we can meet these needs without him but we remain unfulfilled.  It is never enough to try and do these things ourselves…it will always fall short.  In fact, evil can promote the idea that there are very human and worldly ways to meet these needs and draw us away from God.

Perhaps another writing to contemplate is a combination of the Hierarchy of Needs and the journey one takes into faith in Jesus.

Mark K.

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Time and Space

In an effort to get back into the Book of Mysteries that I have been reading, I re-read the Day 17 article “How to Alter your Past”.  Interestingly, I woke this morning thinking deeply about time and space.  And the end of the world.  I’ll explain!

Last night, prior to bed, I watched a videos about the Building of the third Temple, and the Antichrist.  Not exactly the most settling of topics before heading off into dreamland, but it was interesting.  It was put together by a guy who runs a news program (online, I guess) for Isreal.

The first video claimed that the Temple Mound, currently occupied by the Dome of the Rock is NOT the original location of the Jewish temple, but was a Roman fort, Fort Antonio (apparently named for Mark Anthony).  The controversy of the building of the 3rd Temple is that the traditional location is on Temple Mound and that the Muslim shrine there would have to be removed.  I do not think they want to remove it (tradition say that Mohammad was taken up into heaven on that spot.)

So, if the original Jewish temple was not built on Temple Mound, but close to it in the “City of David” (a section of Jerusalem) then the construction could start immediately.  This would be an important event for both Jews and Christians because the building of the 3rd Temple would foreshadow the return (Christian) or appearance (Jews) of the Messiah.

So, mindful of “end times”, the second video discussed the Antichrist. The video made a case for the last two Popes of Rome to be the two individuals discussed in Daniel 11:20,21.

This all resulted in me thinking about Time and Space.  Strange, I know.  First, we are possibly close to the end times and I find these thoughts intriguing.  Second, it makes me wonder about “living after death” and the forever-ness of that.  Third, how does God go back in time and erase our sins?  The creator of time must certainly be able to alter and master time.  Fourth, what has this to do with the nature of universe and the relationship between time and space?

Well, a though, unfounded, came to me.  Time IS space.  Now this might not be a revelation of any kind from a Physics point of view (I will look into this) but it is a curious thought to me.  I will dwell on this.  Of course it would have implications to explain infinity and, on a more mundane level, it would explain space travel and living outside of time in the resurrection.

Mark K.

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How to Alter your Past (The Book of Mysteries – Day 17)

Now this is a challenging one!

We learn here that when God forgives us he actually erases that past sin.  Not just taking it out of the question, but being the master of time, can actually alter the past and make it so that it never happened.

Yet, I’ve always thought that the past was a great teacher.  My past is what makes me who I am, including the sins and the not-so-great parts.

The analogy in the story is a cloth that has been dyed red.  It would be very difficult to turn the cloth back into white cloth, unless you were able to go back in time and prevent it from getting dyed in the first place.  This is what is proposed that God does for us.

This would be the circumstances necessary to have no pain, no regret, no tears, etc.  If we could still remember the pain and sin of the past, then in our blissful state we could still have pain.

I struggle with this one.  It seems like it takes away a bit of my identity.

The Mission: Soak in the undying.  Receive from heaven jour changed, innocent, pure, and beloved past, a past as beautiful and as white as snow.

Mark K.

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The Cup

In my Bible reading today we learn of the cup that Jesus is to drink.  This is the cup that is filled with the anger of God about our sin.  Jesus’ fate is to drink this cup and suffer for us the eternal punishment that is associated with our sin.

The image of the cup is really interesting.  The vessel that holds our drink, so necessary for our lives.  We must drink, without it we cannot survive.  Yet it also represents the vessel that holds many other things.  God’s anger, our rewards (when our cup runners over!), and the cup of the last supper, maybe the Holy Grail.

It is our portion.  It is provided for us.  We do not pour our own cup.  It is given to us and we must accept it as the drink that has been put before us at the meal (life).  We may not like its contents but God has filled the cup.

I think it is also interesting that Jesus has also taught lessons regarding that which “defiles” us.  He states that what goes into us is not that which makes us evil, but what proceeds out of us.  He was, of course, referring to the challenge made to him for gathering grain on the Sabbath, but it really lends a lot of support to the notion that that which we consume can simply go through us and out.  But it is what we DO with that which we consume that makes the difference.

We might, for instance, come across someone attractive and be attracted.  It is not the consumption of beauty with our eyes that makes us evil but what we do with it.  We can simply have it come in and pass out of us.

This is really a lesson, as well, about accepting the cup that has been brought to us.  In fact, going along with the meal analogy, unless we take in the cup that has been filled for us, the host will not know to fill our cup again.  By doing the things that God has laid before us now, we open ourselves to the next thing that he has for us.  But we need to focus on the cup in front of us, maybe still filled with luke warm water…and we drink it, before the cup of wine comes later.

It is our actions in regard to the cup that is in front of us that is that which proceeds out of us and either glorifies God or defiles us.  It is our actions once we have taken in the contents of that cup.

I’m thinking to he analogy that Jesus uses to describe the impact of the word on different people that hear it.  The seeds cast out on the road.  Some will fall on stony ground, some will fall in thorns, some will be snatched away, and some will find good earth. Similar we have our approach to drinking the cup put before us.

I might have to think about this a bit, but there are ways we can approach the cup:

  • We can reject it and not drink of it and stay thirsty.
  • We can take small sips of the drink and “never” really finish it, thus never fulfill what God has put before us.
  • We can toss it aside and attempt to “fake” that we have drunk of it, guessing at what we would be like if we HAD drunk the cup.
  • We can drink and bring in the contents of the cup as it is served to us by God.

There is room here for a longer essay on cups!

———-

Mark K.