Yakin

It may be hard to tell from this picture but these sandals belong to my husband and my 11-year-old stepson.    The larger ones of course being my husbands.   When I noticed these two pairs of shoes next to each other the other day, unlike all the other times I had noticed them there by the door, it really struck me the similarities between them.   My stepson is in more ways then one, a mini version of my husband.   Similar features, similar build, even a similar personality.   Not that you wouldn’t expect some similarities of course to the parents with any child, but the older he gets the more I begin to see it unfold.  The more he begins to look, and act like his dad.  And it got me thinking…Do I look my Father?  Not my earthly Father but my heavenly Father.   Would someone who didn’t know anything about me see the resemblance or would they have no idea whose daughter I was?

 Do I desire to imitate Christ the way a child often desires to be like their parents?  

We have the DNA of our parents in our physical bodies, but, I believe when we are born again in Christ we receive “Heavenly DNA” through the Holy Spirit, enabling us through His power to begin to look and act more like Christ.   To live a life for God rather than ourselves.   We are called, as the Bible says, to be "transformed by the renewing of our minds", to desire the things of heaven rather than the things of this world.   And yet so often we still choose earthly things.   We still strive to make this life better and live for the moment rather than investing in the eternal.   It is easy to do...after all, we have to work, eat, raise kids, go to soccer practices, help with homework, pay bills.    But the enemy knows that if He can’t stop us from following Christ, he can distract us from becoming effective tools for the expansion of the kingdom, with the ideas of success and happiness. He can convince us that we know what is best for our lives, and have everything figured out.   That we don’t need the Lord because we can handle anything that comes our way.

I was studying the word a few days ago and came across a verse I have read 100 times, and as is often the case with the Word, this time, time 101, the Spirit moved as I read, revealing a whole new expanse of truth from the words.    The verse is Proverbs 16:9 and it says

“In his heart a man plans his course but the Lord determines His steps”.  Some translations use the word, directs, or establishes instead of determines, but the root Hebrew word here is the same.  It is the word YaKin, and it means to “Direct ones’ face towards, in Spirit”

I love that the meaning of the word is not, “direct ones’ feet toward” as though to imply simply the act of physical movement, it also doesn’t mean “direct ones’ thoughts” as though to insinuate ideas with no action.   But instead it says “direct ones’ face.

immediately as I read this I say in my mind I saw a child, wandering around as though looking for something but unsure of where to find it, starting to fill with panic and frustration, becoming more and more frantic and desperate, and just then, in a calm and loving manner, a father comes up to the child, gently grabs their face with both hands, tilts it upward to meet his gaze and says, it’s ok my child, just look at me.

Where we are looking, what we are focusing on....that is where we place our energy and attention.   

 And the Lord, in His abundant grace and understanding of our frail nature, knows this.    He offers us this hope.  We are not left to our own devices, to figure out how to navigate this life.   We are not left to fight our battles alone.   We are not left to parent alone, or to work and strive with little more then a paycheck to show for it.   We have a heavenly Father, who wants to be our strength.  Who wants to pour into His children every good thing.  To meet needs, to bring hope, provision, and covering.   And to help us become more like Him, to look more like our Father.

He is there to meet us with grace and turn our rubble and ruin into rubies and roses.      We simply need to let Him direct our faces, meet the eyes of the Creator and King, and refocus our gaze on Him.