The Season of Our Liberation...{Finding Sanctuary - Part 22}

Layers of winged potential...

I just found out that this season in the Jewish Calendar is called "The Season of Our Liberation"....
starting at the first of Nissan and continuing through the Feast of Pentecost...which in Jewish heritage marks the month of the Exodus from Egypt and extends to the point in time when God brought the children of Israel to receive the revelation of Him and His ways at Mount Sinai...and of course we know Pentecost was the day the Holy Spirit was poured out onto all flesh - the One who gives the revelation of God and His Word in our hearts...

Wow...
there is something about that phrase -
"the season of our liberation" -
that has really captured me! 

In the series of "Finding Sanctuary", the goal was to find roots of issues that might be robbing us of the peace that we are promised by the Holy Spirit - another way to say the same thing could be "to find liberation from habits that have enslaved us"...

And that the Feast of First Fruits (Resurrection Sunday) has another name "The Beginning of the Harvest"...

In First Fruits, a sheaf of barley, the first grain to ripen, was waved to signal the beginning of the 49 day countdown to the Feast of Pentecost...which is the time of the early wheat harvest...

So, I am thinking that the work we have already done is like that sheaf of ripened barley, and we can celebrate what we have already accomplished (i.e., wave it)...and the counting of the omer correlates with the time needed to create and fully develop a new habit - the "season of liberation" being a period of time that is virtually the same as research has shown is the optimal period for new habits...the time needed to go from slave mentality to a mentality of freedom...

The journey in the wilderness was a time of drawing close to God, of experiencing Him as the Providor, Protector, and Friend...a restoration of Garden fellowship in the midst of the desert, because anywhere, anytime, we are in God's Presence it is as if we are in the Garden again...

I pray this period of time is an experience of God's Presence in a way that is deeper, more tender and more personal than you have had before...

Consider counting this time, this creating of a new habit, by placing an object in a jar for each passing day - a stone, a bean, a paper heart (what was the item that represented the exchange for you?  Use that!)  A little celebration, one day closer to the harvest of liberation.  An exercise exercising the spirit man!

Find some time to read this article this week - a wonderful encouragement...

Other posts that might be related:

Cycles of Worship - Part 1
Making Lent Linger