First, I want to welcome several new subscribers to my little Doorkeeper Watch Blog. I have many readers who have been with me for over 12 years now, which is such a joy! But lately, since I am somewhat "shut in," I have been praying and asking the Lord to grow this Blog and bring many more to whom I can minister His Word and with whom I can share the ponderings of my heart.  I will be grateful if you will share it with others and encourage them to subscribe. The hour is late.

Watching a good teaching the other night on "The Days of Noah," I learned that the Hebrew word for our English words shut and seal are the same word. In Hebrew, the word sagar can mean "to shut in, to protect, to seal."  I thought for a long while about Genesis 7:16: "Then the LORD shut him in." By that time Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives all knew that the rest of the humans on the earth had mocked Noah, rejected God, and given themselves over to death by drowning.  But Noah and his family were "shut in" on this "ark of the Covenant," this vessel that preserved life and sealed (or marked) these eight people as God's own. Those whom He shut in and sealed, He also divinely protected. 

There must be a correlation, then, to the seal of ownership and protection on God's people in the end times. Revelation 9:4: They [the locusts] were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree but only those people who did NOT have the seal of God on their foreheads." Thus those who DO have the seal of God on their foreheads are marked as His and protected from these plagues.  I wonder if they are shut in their homes or meeting together in some utterly secret underground gatherings.  It caused me to recollect our Passover celebration in March of 2020.  The virus was sweeping the land and we were all told we must stay in our homes. We were shut in!  After several years of Passover celebrations with over a hundred people, that year it was just John and me at our table, with our roasted lamb, our charoset, our matzah and our cups of wine.  John took some of the blood from the lamb before I roasted it and he went to our front and back doors and reverently applied the blood. The deep, profound meaning of it all left me in tears that night and I shall never forget it!  We knew God was sealing us that year, in the keeping of His holy Passover feast and in the covering of the Blood of the Lamb! I never felt so protected and I never felt so hemmed in with His love!  As it says in 2 Corinthians 1:22, "He anointed us, set His seal of ownership on us and put His Spirit in our hearts as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come."

We are all like Noah in this present day, friends. We hear the mocking and scorning of God and of the true Gospel message all around us, but we press on.  We seek the Holy One of Israel in His Word and in His Moedim (His Sabbaths and feast days). He shuts us in, separating us out from the world and its ways, and seals us with the Blood and with the sign of His covenant, His seal of ownership. And He graces us with an anointing of His Holy Spirit, compelling us to move forward into the Promise of His Kingdom-Come.  We are signed, sealed, and soon to be delivered!

This is probably going to be a very brief blog; but I have the sense that someone out there needs to hear this comforting word from the Lord.

As my eyelids fluttered open this morning and I awoke from my sleep, the usual complaints crossed my mind first thing. I don't utter these complaints out loud; they just permeate my very first thoughts in the morning and I know it's not good. "Oh God, another day," my heart sighs. "I will have to do it all over again today, just like yesterday and the day before and the week before and the month before...."

Realizing how displeasing this must be to God, as I awaken with complaints filling my thoughts instead of praise, I began to apologize (as I have many times before). "Forgive me, Lord. I know it must be so grievous to you to perceive these negative groanings from my mind and heart as I first awaken in the morning. I know I should be arising with great praise and joy in a beautiful new day, and fresh opportunities to serve You!"  Then this morning, in the Spirit, I heard a still, small response from the Lord. Ever so gently I heard Him say, "It's true that I don't like the complaints. I know that this is not what you expected your married life to be like.  But what blesses Me is that you do it anyway! Each and every day I watch as you resolve to set the complaints aside, arise from your bed, and go out to find your Bible.  You sit with Me as together we choose what you should read to your husband. Then once he is up you do what you do every day. You read to him, you pray for him, you make him a good breakfast and then you spend your day meeting his needs and showing him that you love and honor him.   It's not what you really want to be doing, but you do it anyway. You do it for him, and you do it for Me.  And I notice. Every day.  It is obedience that brings blessing."

Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to Him - Psalm 128:1

Take heart all you who are spending your days caring for someone. Know that your occasional grumbling is not what matters.  It's your obedience to God that counts. You are blessing Him!