Blessed are those who mourn!

"Blessed" - To kneel down and extend the hands and offer a gift.  The living God postures Himself in this way and offers us a gift.  Blessed are you who mourn! 

I told Steve this morning, "Mourning or sorrow is not usually my first response to situations that I THINK should warrant mourning or sorrow.  Anger seems to be my first response!  What is up with that?" 

My reading this morning was from Leviticus.  check this out......

Leviticus 26
1 "Do not make idols or set up carved images, or sacred pillars, or sculptured stones in your land so you may worship them. I am the LORD your God.
2 You must keep my Sabbath days of rest and show reverence for my sanctuary. I am the LORD.

3 "If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands,
4 I will send you the seasonal rains. The land will then yield its crops, and the trees of the field will produce their fruit.
5 Your threshing season will overlap with the grape harvest, and your grape harvest will overlap with the season of planting grain. You will eat your fill and live securely in your own land.

6 "I will give you peace in the land, and you will be able to sleep with no cause for fear. I will rid the land of wild animals and keep your enemies out of your land.
7 In fact, you will chase down your enemies and slaughter them with your swords.
8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand! All your enemies will fall beneath your sword.

9 "I will look favorably upon you, making you fertile and multiplying your people. And I will fulfill my covenant with you.
10 You will have such a surplus of crops that you will need to clear out the old grain to make room for the new harvest!
11 I will live among you, and I will not despise you.
12 I will walk among you; I will be your God, and you will be my people.
13 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so you would no longer be their slaves. I broke the yoke of slavery from your neck so you can walk with your heads held high.


14 "However, if you do not listen to me or obey all these commands,
15 and if you break my covenant by rejecting my decrees, treating my regulations with contempt, and refusing to obey my commands,
16 I will punish you. I will bring sudden terrors upon you—wasting diseases and burning fevers that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to ebb away. You will plant your crops in vain because your enemies will eat them.
17 I will turn against you, and you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will run even when no one is chasing you!

18 "And if, in spite of all this, you still disobey me, I will punish you seven times over for your sins.
19 I will break your proud spirit by making the skies as unyielding as iron and the earth as hard as bronze.
20 All your work will be for nothing, for your land will yield no crops, and your trees will bear no fruit.

21 "If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey me, I will inflict disaster on you seven times over for your sins.
22 I will send wild animals that will rob you of your children and destroy your livestock. Your numbers will dwindle, and your roads will be deserted.

23 "And if you fail to learn the lesson and continue your hostility toward me,
24 then I myself will be hostile toward you. I will personally strike you with calamity seven times over for your sins.
25 I will send armies against you to carry out the curse of the covenant you have broken. When you run to your towns for safety, I will send a plague to destroy you there, and you will be handed over to your enemies.
26 I will destroy your food supply, so that ten women will need only one oven to bake bread for their families. They will ration your food by weight, and though you have food to eat, you will not be satisfied.

27 "If in spite of all this you still refuse to listen and still remain hostile toward me,
28 then I will give full vent to my hostility. I myself will punish you seven times over for your sins.
29 Then you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.
30 I will destroy your pagan shrines and knock down your places of worship. I will leave your lifeless corpses piled on top of your lifeless idols,* and I will despise you.
31 I will make your cities desolate and destroy your places of pagan worship. I will take no pleasure in your offerings that should be a pleasing aroma to me.
32 Yes, I myself will devastate your land, and your enemies who come to occupy it will be appalled at what they see.
33 I will scatter you among the nations and bring out my sword against you. Your land will become desolate, and your cities will lie in ruins.
34 Then at last the land will enjoy its neglected Sabbath years as it lies desolate while you are in exile in the land of your enemies. Then the land will finally rest and enjoy the Sabbaths it missed.
35 As long as the land lies in ruins, it will enjoy the rest you never allowed it to take every seventh year while you lived in it.

36 "And for those of you who survive, I will demoralize you in the land of your enemies. You will live in such fear that the sound of a leaf driven by the wind will send you fleeing. You will run as though fleeing from a sword, and you will fall even when no one pursues you.
37 Though no one is chasing you, you will stumble over each other as though fleeing from a sword. You will have no power to stand up against your enemies.
38 You will die among the foreign nations and be devoured in the land of your enemies.
39 Those of you who survive will waste away in your enemies' lands because of their sins and the sins of their ancestors.

40 "But at last my people will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors for betraying me and being hostile toward me.
41 When I have turned their hostility back on them and brought them to the land of their enemies, then at last their stubborn hearts will be humbled, and they will pay for their sins.
42 Then I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.
43 For the land must be abandoned to enjoy its years of Sabbath rest as it lies deserted. At last the people will pay for their sins, for they have continually rejected my regulations and despised my decrees.

44 "But despite all this, I will not utterly reject or despise them while they are in exile in the land of their enemies. I will not cancel my covenant with them by wiping them out, for I am the LORD their God.
45 For their sakes I will remember my ancient covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of all the nations, that I might be their God. I am the LORD."

46 These are the decrees, regulations, and instructions that the LORD gave through Moses on Mount Sinai as evidence of the relationship between himself and the Israelites.


If I am allowed to trainee float myself, I would say my anger response to situations going on around me are rooted in the outright hostility and disobedience of humanity towards God. 

Verse 40 helps direct my anger into mourning/confession. So often I want to remove myself from my priestly role of offering living sacrifices on behalf of the people.  Confessing our sin on behalf of the people.  Carrying out God's commands and decrees on behalf of the people........on and on I can go! 

I have always struggled with Moses' response......
Numbers 14
14 After the Israelites heard the report from the twelve men who had explored Canaan, the people cried all night 2 and complained to Moses and Aaron, “We wish we had died in Egypt or somewhere out here in the desert! 3 Is the Lord leading us into Canaan, just to have us killed and our women and children captured? We’d be better off in Egypt.” 4 Then they said to one another, “Let’s choose our own leader and go back.”

5 Moses and Aaron bowed down to pray in front of the crowd. 6 Joshua and Caleb tore their clothes in sorrow 7 and said:

We saw the land ourselves, and it’s very good. 8 If we obey the Lord, he will surely give us that land rich with milk and honey. 9 So don’t rebel. We have no reason to be afraid of the people who live there. The Lord is on our side, and they won’t stand a chance against us!

10 The crowd threatened to stone Moses and Aaron to death. But just then, the Lord appeared in a cloud at the sacred tent.

Moses Prays for the People
11 The Lord said to Moses, “I have done great things for these people, and they still reject me by refusing to believe in my power. 12 So they will no longer be my people. I will destroy them, but I will make you the ancestor of a nation even stronger than theirs.”

13-16 Moses replied:

With your mighty power you rescued your people from Egypt, so please don’t destroy us here in the desert. If you do, the Egyptians will hear about it and tell the people of Canaan. Those Canaanites already know that we are your people, and that we see you face to face. And they have heard how you lead us with a thick cloud during the day and flaming fire at night. But if you kill us, they will claim it was because you weren’t powerful enough to lead us into Canaan as you promised.

17 Show us your great power, Lord. You promised 18 that you love to show mercy and kindness. And you said that you are very patient, but that you will punish everyone guilty of doing wrong—not only them but their children and grandchildren as well.

19 You are merciful, and you treat people better than they deserve. So please forgive these people, just as you have forgiven them ever since they left Egypt.

20 Then the Lord said to Moses:

In answer to your prayer, I do forgive them. 21 But as surely as I live and my power has no limit, 22-23 I swear that not one of these Israelites will enter the land I promised to give their ancestors. These people have seen my power in Egypt and in the desert, but they will never see Canaan. They have disobeyed and tested me too many times.

24 But my servant Caleb isn’t like the others. So because he has faith in me, I will allow him to cross into Canaan, and his descendants will settle there.
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I would have gladly moved aside and said, "Smoke them Lord!" 

I think Bono from U2 expresses my inner turmoil best in the song "When I Look At The World"

When I Look at the World- U2
When you look at the world
What is it that you see
People find all kinds of things
That bring them to their knees

I see an expression
So clear and so true
That it changes the atmosphere
When you walk (in)to the room

So I try to be like you
Try to feel it like you do
But without you it's no use
I can't see what you see
When I look at the world

When the night is someone else's
And you're trying to get some sleep
When your thoughts are too expensive
To ever want to keep

When there's all kinds of chaos
And everyone is walking lame
You don't even blink now do you
Or even look away

So I try to be like you
Try to feel it like you do
But without you it's no use
I can't see what you see
When I look at the world

I can't wait any longer
I can't wait 'til I'm stronger
Can't wait any longer
To see what you see
When I look at the world

I'm in the waiting room
I can't see for the smoke
I think of you and your holy book
When the rest of us choke

Tell me, tell me
What do you see
Tell me, tell me
What's wrong with me


-Reid