July 23, 2009

Dear Mishpochah,

We’ve traveled a few miles since our last communication so this first posting on our new blog page will probably be a bit long! Several months ago we wrote to you about “living like Bedouins” – remember? Well, the funny thing about speaking a “word” from YHVH is that it then becomes a decision about living the word that you have spoken. Does your talk line up with your walk! Are you going to be a witness in action as well as word? So when Abba gave us the word to pack we were met smack in the face of the Reality of walking our talk! It was a startling decision actually, to leave our home of the last seven years – yes, we have been on the road a good bit these past few years but we always had a place to come back to and unload and repack and sort and … now we do not have that luxury and it is still sinking in how this is going to play out for us, but in the meantime it seems (right now) like an extended road trip!

We hear so many things on the road of how people will just walk away from their homes when the time comes or when I see the military coming up the drive then I’ll get in my car and leave or I can leave all this stuff, it doesn’t mean that much to me. Well I’m here to tell you that might be what your mind is telling you right now, but your heart, most likely, is singing a different tune. I used to think that I could just walk away – that I wasn’t attached to my stuff or my home so strongly that I just couldn’t leave it when it was time to go, but Jeremiah tells us that “the heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things.” Your heart will come up with all kinds of excuses and justifications and emotions for remaining in babylon and if you wait until you see “the whites of their eyes” to lose yourself from the entanglements of babylon your heart of flesh will have captured you. Reading from Oswald Chambers “My Utmost for His Highest” this morning he had some interesting insights on sanctification. “Sanctification is not drawing from Y’Shua the power to be holy; it is drawing from Y’Shua the holiness that was manifested in Him, and He manifests in me. In Y’Shua haMashiac is the perfection of everything, and the mystery of sanctification is that all the perfections of Y’Shua are at my disposal, and slowly and surely I begin to live a life of ineffable order and sanity and holiness: ‘shielded by YHVH’S power.’” This happens when I am willing to reduce myself simply to “me” to determinedly strip myself of all my friends think of me, of all that I think of myself and to hand that simple naked self over to YHVH. Immediately when I do this, He will sanctify me wholly, and my life will be free from earnestness in connection with anything but YHVH.” When we are in this place in Y’Shua then we can “walk away” when He says it’s time to go. (From personal experience -It does become easier to live a sanctified life the less “stuff” you have.)

Everyone remember please, that this is a blog page of the experiences and insights of Steve and Shirley Rees and the things expressed here may not necessarily apply to you.

Abba gave us a most awesome week vacation on the Shuswap Lake of British Columbia, Canada. We spent this time with dear friends Don and Maureen in their log house home right on the lake. Had opportunity to tell stories and minister healing with both harp and prayer and counsel. Steve built Maureen’s harp while we were there, Shirley finished a new costume, and Frances learned to tie tzitzits. We went swimming in the lake and enjoyed music in the park on Wednesday evenings, hiked to Margaret Falls, investigated the flora and fauna for wild edibles , meet new friends – delightful time! Thank you dear hearts!

We left Canada for the ‘Love for Israel’ conference in Portland, Oregon, July 17-19; a lot of good teaching, wonderful dance presentations, and outstanding worship and dance. The theme of the conference was “Watchman” and here is a little nugget from Ephraim and Rimona Frank for you – Matthew 6:34 says, “Then have no care for tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Take the trouble of the day as it comes.” Hasatan works in our regrets and our worries – the watchman needs to abide in the present presence of YHVH. If the watchman is distracted with past failures and regrets or worrying about future potential problems then he is not being fervent and effective in his duty for the present moment. As a watchman he is to remain stationed at his post, the distractions of past or future have potential to drag him away from his post thereby rendering him ineffective in his job and this is hasatan’s strategy to drag us away from the presence of YHVH by getting us to dwell in our past or our future instead of living in the present moment with Y’Shua.

Our observation is that as exploring this “Bedouin” lifestyle it helps us take our eyes off depending on babylon for our future provision and helps us turn our focus more on a day by day realization of present provision from YHVH’s hand. As Brad Scott said in a talk the first of the year, ‘we may not be at the time to go to the wilderness for good, but maybe it would be wise to find like-minded people to begin to practice together a simplified lifestyle; i.e. no electricity for a day, no running water for a day, cut down your usable floor space for awhile, sleep on the ground, walk to the store, turn off your air-conditioning, etc. ‘ From Bill Cloud: “It is a whole lot easier to take Israel out of the land of Egypt than it is to take the culture of Egypt out of Israel.” The long and the short of all this is; coming to the understanding that we hold these “attachments to Babylon” loosely in our hands – protected from the enemy snatching the gifts of YHVH away from us, but loosely enough to release them when YHVH asks. We still drive a truck and pull a trailer, we still use petroleum products to get us here and there – we still have “attachments to babylon”, we are still being blessed by these gifts of YHVH, but are we so tied to them that if He said to let them go and begin to walk with our carts, could we? Again from “My Utmost for His Highest, “I (YHVH) call upon you for extreme service with no complaining on your part and no explanation on mine.” Let’s start practicing now folks – it’ll be a whole lot easier on us if we do! The Israelites complained in the wilderness – ten times they tried YHVH – as you practice giving up and you find yourself complaining, mark them well for this is quite possibly where you will be tried and tested in like manner as the Israelites of old.
We have been practicing. We’ve been passing through some beautiful country in Montana and for the last two nights we have slept under the stars on BLM land. (That’s free camping!) In the morning we went foraging for wild edibles and made our breakfast drink with plantain, cattail, doc, yarrow, goldenrod, huckleberries, thistle flowers, rose hips and leaves and milkweed flowers. It was quite yummy not to mention high in fiber! We figure it just might be better to adjust our taste buds now while we still have a choice.