THE LATEST FROM TIM SPYKSTRA:
To The Place Where I Belong
A 31-Day Devotional on John 13-17
THE LATEST FROM TIM SPYKSTRA:
To The Place Where I Belong
A 31-Day Devotional on John 13-17
A Spiritual New Year
I have always loved the fall. The heat of summer begins to retreat as crisp mornings and cooler evenings emerge. Trees slowly turn color and all of a sudden glow like fire. A new school and church season kicks off and of course football games.
In the Jewish Calendar it is the beginning of the Spiritual New Year, the 7 month. It is Rosh Hashanah. In fact this coming Friday night this most Holy season embarks. It is a time of reflection, introspection, and confession of sins before the most Holy Day in the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur. The day when once a year the high priest gathered the blood of the spotless lamb and poured it upon the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies.
Last month, Oceans Ministries hosted a retreat in Michigan with a group of high school students who recently returned from a Kingdom Encounter in South Africa. During our time together we practiced one of the rituals which takes place during Rosh Hashanah called “casting your sins into the deep.”
During this ceremony a religious congregation will meet at a river or stream. Here special prayers of repentance are recited from a paraphrase of Micah 7:19b-20:
“You will cast all their sins into the depth of the sea, and may You cast all the sins of Your people, the house of Israel into a place where they shall be no more remembered or visited or ever come to mind.”
After the prayer the people would shake bread crumbs from their pockets and toss them into the water. This action symbolized their sins being removed and remembered no more.
In our ceremony, we didn’t use bread crumbs but instead found pieces of wood or leaves and used a sharpie to write down our sins and spiritual battles. Many also wrote down fears, anxieties or anything else we may have been struggling with, things we wanted to let go of before a new school year started.
Personally, I found a big stick in the woods because I had lot to write down. And as I walked in the beautiful forest a phrase kept bouncing in my mind, “Let go and enjoy the ride!” So when it came time to throw my stick covered with black ink of my sins and fears I did so with joy as I watched it flow down the river and out of sight.
It was so good to reflect on Jesus, both our great High Priest and the perfect Lamb of God, who sacrificially brought His own blood and placed it on heaven’s mercy seat. My sins are gone. Because of Jesus I stand in His perfection before my loving Abba Father.
This blog would not be complete without sharing about one of the free times when the students jumped into the river and floated down it in tubes. No doubt it was loud, filled with laughter, and lots of splashing as the students relished in God’s beautiful creation. Such a great picture of what happens when we let go of our sins and believe in the miracle of salvation. We can float in The River of His amazing grace with joy-trusting in the Father’s love to carry us to His eternal purpose for our lives.
Perhaps you need to find a river to toss all your sins, worries, and fears into it and let the River of grace fill you with joy so that you can daily live into your Spiritual New Year.
