My one word summary of Leviticus: rest.
It is a book of the law, riddled with particular details and lists of commands. But ironically much of what God repetitively tells His people to do is nothing.
At first Leviticus was super dry for me. I was starting to skim over, reading for quantity rather than soaking up life from the law. But by the final chapters I realized that what was being repeated were commands for Sabbath. Designated rest every week, every year, leaving the land for varying periods of time….and a lot of celebrating the Lord. Basically I realized how important it is to God that stop doing “things”. A fresh but challenging contradiction to the voices coming at me from every other angle.
It reminded me of earlier this week when my friend and I were reading 1 Thessalonians 3:12-13
“May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones..”
She called the elephant in the room that I nearly skipped over: God does everything.
God increases my love.
God strengthens my heart.
God makes me holy and blameless.
And what is my role in this process? To simply be.
I was surprised and excited to hit my first support raising milestone this week (10% woot!) but it was also very clearly not my doing. That money is not mine.
God prepared the hearts.
God met us in our conversations.
God provided the support, emotionally and financially.
And my role has so clearly been to receive.
So for those of you who were a part of that this week, thank you so much! I am grateful beyond words for you. I am truly excited to walk together with you through the next year and a half and beyond.
