Ephraim's Got Alzheimer's: The Divine Plague of Memory!

Yahweh Smashing!
"I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand." (Deut. 32:39)
"Hear and hear, but do not understand; see and see, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see...and hear...and understand...and then turn and be healed." (Isaiah 6:9-13)
"There is no remembrance of former things nor any remembrance of later things yet to happen... (Eccles. 1:11)

Yahweh Explaining: The Disease and the Diagnosis
"This is your lot, the portion I have measured out to you says Yahweh, because you have forgotten me and trusted in lies." (Jeremiah 13:25)
"For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge... Yet the harvest will flee away in a day of grief and incurable pain." (Isaiah 17:10)
"My people have been lost sheep; ...led astray...they have forgotten their fold." (Jeremiah 50:6)
"Your pain is incurable... I have done these things to you." (Jeremiah 30:11-15)
"Samaria (Ephraim/House of Israel)...her wound is incurable. (Micah 1:5-9)

Yahweh's Divine Plague: Ephraim has Alzheimer's!
Upon the greater part of the People of Israel has come divine wounding, pain, discipline, punishment, disease, and dispersion... Blows that have obliterated all memory and all remembrance and all function. Ephraim has descended into darkness: a vegetable, not a fruit---good only for slicing, dicing, or juicing... A cabbage-patch doll!!
"Therefore justice is far from us (Ephraim/House of Israel), and righteousness does not overtake us; we look for light, and behold, darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope...like those who have no eyes; we stumble..." (Isaiah 59:9-10; Rev. 3:17)

Yahweh's Prognosis:
"Remember these things O Jacob... I formed you, you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me." (Isaiah 44:21)
"For he remembered his holy promise and Abraham his servant." (Psalm 105:42)
"Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him." (Jeremiah 31:20)
"How can I give you up, O Ephraim! How can I hand you over, O Israel... my compassion grows warm and tender." (Hosea 11:8)
"Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death?" (Hosea 13:14)

Yahweh's Cure:
"For I will restore health to you and your wound I will heal says Yahweh." (Jeremiah 30:17)
"When Yahweh binds up the hurt of his people and heals the wound inflicted by His blow." (Isaiah 30:26)
"Be not wise in your own eyes. Fear Yahweh, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones." (Proverbs 3:7)
"What are these feeble Jews doing...? Will they revive the burned stones... the heap of rubbish...?" (Nehemiah 4:1-2)

Yahweh's Restoration of All Israel:
"For behold I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create... I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and be glad in my people." (Isaiah 65:17-19)

Who are You? What are You?
Is there in you an Awakening---the shaking off of the gloom and darkness? Is there awaking even a tiny seed of memory, buried in the earth and dead in the past, of who and what you are? Is the long sleep of your Ephraimite Alzheimer's being broken?

Borderlands: Between Two Kingdoms---Yours and Israel

No servant can serve two masters; for he will either hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. (Luke 16:13)

None except Caleb and Joshua...for they have wholly followed Yahweh. (Number 32:11)

But whenever the judge died, they turned back and behaved worse than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them, and bowing down to them; they did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways. (Judges 2:19)

Of the half-tribe of Manasseh... who were expressly named to come and make David king...to help David with singleness of purpose. (1 Chron. 12:31-33)

It takes no great exercise of the imagination to project what it would be like to live astride a picket fence...! Certainly painful and impossible to move without feeling the prick of the pickets in a most tender place. The obvious solution: move to one side of the fence or the other. But as our legs shrink or shorten---perhaps the fence is growing higher and higher as well?---"the move" becomes more difficult and painful. But of course, there are always those who work hard at maintaining their delusion of being "able to straddle the fence" and live in two kingdoms simultaneously: their "kingdom" Monday to Friday, God's "kingdom" on the sabbath... your "kingdom" in the world most times, and "Israel" in the leftover times: The Borderlands!!
At the border crossings between Israel and Palestinian/Jordanian/Syrian... areas, there is, more or less, "a no man's land or zone", a strip of land in which you are neither in Israel nor Jordan. A person can't live there at all, and likely if they dawdle or delay in crossing that "Borderland" they will be shot at from one side or the other. You have to be in one or the other of the "kingdoms". You not allowed to have one foot in Israel and one foot in Jordan.
The solution: Purify your hearts, ye double-minded men! (James 4:8) Other translations render the verse: "wavering individuals with divided interests".
And make your yes simply "yes", and your no a decisive "no".

God Wouldn't Do That!!!

Many are the "religious" assertions concerning what God would or would not do... Perhaps it would be helpful and profitable for you to consider the following:

When Yahweh first spoke through Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, "Go take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry... (Hosea 1:2)
God wouldn't do That!!!
"Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." (Genesis 22:1-2)
God wouldn't do That!!!
Then two harlots came to the king (Solomon). One said..."the living child is mine, and the dead child is yours." And the king said, "Bring me a sword. Divide the living child in two, and give half to one, and half to the other." (1 Kings 3:16, 22, 29)
God wouldn't do That!!!
And God said to Noah, "I have determined to make an end of all flesh... For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life...everythin that is on the earth shall die. He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the ground... (Genesis 6:13, 17, 7:23)
God wouldn't do That!!!
There let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and their children... (Ezra 10:3)
God wouldn't do That!!!
She (Judah) saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce; yet her false sister Judah did not fear... (Jeremiath 3:8)
God wouldn't do That!!!
Thus says Yahweh: "Where is your mother's bill of divorce, with which I put her away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was put away." (Isaiah 50:1)
God wouldn't do That!!!
The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery... and they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Torah Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?" "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her. Woman...has no one condemned you? Neither do I condemn you; go , and do not sin again." (John 8:3-11)
God wouldn't do That!!!
And they carried the Ark of God upon a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab which was on the hill; And Uzzah and Ahio were driving the new cart with the Ark of God and when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the Ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Uzzah; And God smote him there because he put forth his hand to the Ark; And he died there beside the Ark of God. (2 Samuel 6:3-7)
God wouldn't do That!!!
Yahweh said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job...?" And Satan answered Yahweh and said, "Skin for skin, and all that a man has he would give for his life! But stretch out your hand please and strike his bone and flesh---if he would not curse you to your face!" And Yahweh said to Satan, "Behold he is in your power, only spare his life." And Satan went out from the presence of Yahweh and smote Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And his wife said to him, "Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!" But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Indeed, should we accept only good from God, and not accept evil...?" (Job 2:3-10)
God wouldn't do That!!!
If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other disliked, and they have borne him children...he shall acknowledge the first-born, the son of the disliked, by giving him a double portion of all that he has... Now the sone of Jacob were twelve. The sons of Leah: Reuben (Jacob's first-born), Simeon, Levi, Judah... The sons of Reuben the first-born of Israel (for he was the first-born; but because he polluted his father's couch, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel, so that he is not enrolled in the genealogy according to the birthright...yet the birthright belonged to Joseph) (Deut. 21:15-17, Genesis 35:22, 1 Chron. 5:1-2) Replacement Theology??? Isaac replaces Ishmael, Jacob replaces Esau...
God wouldn't do That!!!

When My Father Roars...

A true story. While still several years away from being a teenager, I was a young and promising Boy Scout, adventurous and always ready to go exploring with my friends. Early in the Fall, our troop prepared for a weekend camp-out at Breakheart Reservation. We would hike the six or seven miles and stay Friday night until Sunday morning. All treks seems to start in high spirits; this one was no exception, and our arrival at the campsite was exciting---several other troops from surrounding towns were also there.
Ritchie was the prankster among us, and of course, he came prepared. Around nine-thirty that evening he brought out the device, always a favorite of boys that age: a new water squirt gun, fully loaded. With no hesitation, he began to baptize anyone within its ten foot range. What a way to liven up a bunch of adolescent boys! But our troop leader was not pleased, and Ritchie wouldn't put "it" away. After several warnings, the leader had had enough. His barking, "you, you, and you... pack up your gear and head home!" Silence: instantly, palpable silence replaced noise. Those of us around Ritchie were stunned. We all looked at one another, like is this for real? No doubt about it. Again, this time pointing right at us: "you, you, you...all of you, pack it up." We could hardly believe it. It was already 10:30 p.m. However, in fifteen minutes, we were all outside with full packs, in the dark, headed home. No conversation now, just slow trudging out of the Reservation, onto the highway. We were together, we were friends, but each of us trudged along alone in our own silence. About 1:30 a.m. in the morning, one by one, we broke off to go down our own street. I was the last one, I had come the farthest, and now was the last of the nighttime trekkers. Parker Street wasn't very long in the daylight, but that night it seemed a long darkness punctuated by widely separated street lamps.
My home was a dark hulk, two and a half storeys barely discernible at that hour. Tired and anxious, I didn't wake my family at two-thirty in the morning; I just curled up against my pack on the back porch and slept. There my mother found me when she went out to pick up the early morning milk delivery. I could hear her calling my father, upset and wondering, and questioning me all the while I was trying to get in the house. I told my father what had happened, then went upstairs to bed.
Sometime during my half-sleep, I heard my father on the phone roaring....roaring his anger..."you let my son walk half the night home alone...!" One conversation after another he moved up the Boy Scout chain of command. The father of one of my friends was superintendent of schools. There was definitely going to be an accounting if my father had his way. And he did. When my Father roared, He was heard, and no one withstood His Word.

Profile of An Israelite

A True Israelite is willing and able...

1) To have their heart broken, that is to have their love spurned, rejected, even despised

2) To be crushed, that is to experience overwhelming disappointment of their hopes, vision, efforts

3) To be betrayed, that is to experience promises made---promises broken; covenants made---covenants broken

4) To walk the dry and thirsty land, and be "a friend", that is one who will gladly share the last sips of water with their companion(s)

5) To live under the "rains"---early and latter---that the LORD sends upon their life, their work, their faith: Garlic on the Golan

6) To press on, walk on, hobble along, and bear the pain of the journey, the pain of their knee, the pain of their heart or their head...crying out for help, but not for the relief of quitting, of taking a different path, of turning aside, or of simply stopping

7) To finally be mocked as a fool---"Where is your God?"---in the midst of the dark night of their soul: impossible, apparently fatal circumstances, the death of Israel, and the failure of Salvation

8) To be "marked"

9) To refuse "No" as an answer, rather to insist: "Make room for me (us)!"

10) To be a "Bag Lady" One bag, two bags...acknowledging whatever I choose I must carry!

11) To be "homeless" temporarily, for a season, for a time

12) To be a "fanatic"

13) To slay that which must be "slain"

14) To be a Bride to a true Bridegroom

Mole vs. Rock

All around this solitary garlic plant, Miryam the Mole had had her way, that is, she would tunnel to a spot directly underneath a garlic plant, then head straight upward following the roots of her intended snack. Eating from below, tugging the plant down into the earth, she would dine quite satisfied with her find. How then did this one, healthy, robust garlic plant survive, while all about every other plant had been pulled down?

Numerous places throughout the garden I had encountered Rocks up to the size of a really large grapefruit. Think about this: a garlic plant growing right on top of a Rock would be protected and essentially invisible to the keen senses of the sniffing mole. And, I don't know of a mole, anywhere, that can bore through solid Rock! Is this not according to the Word? "A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand; but it will not come near you. He will set me high upon a Rock. The LORD is my Rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer... (Psalms18:2; 27:5; 91:7) If you are in a garden with a marauding mole, growing on top of a Rock is the place to be!

Mole Moves

Miryam the Mole has met her Maker. The way of all flesh is to run to and fro, back and forth...be anxious for our food, fretful to preserve our life, and determined to seek out whatever our "nose" fancies... and in all those tunnels in which we run about, there is a trap. That trap would have no power over us, except it is baited by the thing we want most! So we are drawn to our doom by desire (maybe even inordinate desire, which is lust).
I think Miryam the Mole couldn't give up her garlic patch. Even when the "stinky" got pretty awe-ful on one end, she would race through tunnels to another part of the garden. So for Miryam, there really wasn't any escape from the stinky but one: Leave. That, or perish. However, she couldn't abide what was to have been her Passover. Instead, she was trapped at the end of a new tunnel that was seeking to break into four new rows of garlic.
I could see the end coming for her. Up to the high end of the garden she would race for a garlic, then all the way down to the lower end for another. Rushing to and fro in a matter of minutes. In one intersection she even threw up a mound of dirt---in my face so to speak---to try and seal off the stink in the main tunnels. And not paying attention to where she was headed. Two cats were already sitting and listening to her "moves" to and fro. Ready to pounce. Only difference from lions, cats don't roar. But, they hunt just as skillfully, and these aren't de-clawed house kitties.
So ends the story of Miryam. Her Hebrew name comes from "marah" (bitter) and "yam" (sea or ocean). Miryam's way is the way of all flesh. Look around you, seen everywhere: a few moments in the pleasures of the garden... then!!
Thirty-seven garlic plants later, I am a bit sad. Maybe moles can't learn some new "moves." She was certainly quite proficient at digging tunnels and eating, but those "moves" did her in. So now the cats are smiling, the garlic grows tall in the new rains, and "Shaket" and "Shalom"---quiet and peace---reign in the garden once again.
Indeed, Miryam did have something of God to reveal to me.
But first, I'm going to have a big dish of my favorite ice cream topped with ripe banana...