Day 1 of Creation, Chaos and Confusion: a state in which all is mixed up
All the instruction which I am enjoining on you today you shall observe to obey, that you may live and multiply and enter and tenant the land about which Yahweh had sworn to your fathers.
And remember all the way which Yahweh your Elohim caused you to go these forty years in the wilderness,
that He might make you humble,
to probe you so as to know what is in your heart,
whether or not you shall observe His instructions.
Deuteronomy 8: 1-2
Each time we enter and return to the Word we hear an instruction and a command to obey it. The command isn’t made like a condescending expectation but rather one that implores us to do so because our heart is been called to it. We are reminded that the previous time we entered the Word, it offered us truth and brought us through the wilderness states of temptation as we worked with it.
And here we have returned, ready to walk through the wilderness again. Quite often we return to the Word when we are already in a state of confusion and chaos and are seeking the truth to stabilise us. And other times we are just returning intentionally with the hope of truth inspiring us. We are reminded here in the first part of Chapter 8 in Deuteronomy, that whatever happens, the process will be about being made humble and having our heart exposed as to where our loves lie and that there is an ‘as of self’ effort required to then follow through with what instructions we are given, as the work that we asked to do.
Day 2 of Creation, Distinction: Defining human states- what is human and what isn’t
So He made you humble and let you hunger;
then He fed you with the manna which neither you had known, nor had your fathers known,
that He might make you realize that not on bread alone shall the human live,
for by every utterance from the mouth of Yahweh shall the human live.
Your garment has not worn out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years,
Deuteronomy 8: 3-4
When we start to read the Word, things start to jump out at us. We start to notice things that are referring to the Lord, as in what is good and what is true and the things that aren’t. We see this expressed here in the idea that there are states that need feeding that don’t recognise what belongs to the Lord. Thus a distinction is offered between simply taking in the truth that is good that the Word offers, and then really living it in use. It isn’t just the ‘bread alone’, from what the Word feeds us with that sustains us but it also needs to be something that is really lived as an expression in life. How we live our life is an expression of what we love and just as our life expresses what is in our heart, the Lord’s love and truth needs to be the ‘every utterance’ of that heart and life. When our life is lived and expressed with the Word in our heart, through the Lord in this way, then we are given real life. The Divine Human, as the Word manifesting the Lord, lives through us as our life source and thus we are an expression of what is human and living.
Day 3 of Creation, Repentance/Metanoia: A change of heart
So you know with your heart that just as a man disciplines his son, Yahweh your Elohim is disciplining you.
Hence observe the instructions of Yahweh your Elohim so as to walk in His ways and to fear Him.
Deuteronomy 8: 5-6
Seeing what is human and what is not, leads us into a state of repentance in an acknowledgement that we indeed need to pay attention to what it is we hear the Word asking of us, as a means of disciplining us. The word ‘discipline’ conveys the idea of making something correct through instruction or the training of oneself to do something in a controlled and ...
