![]() They came out of Egypt, caught a glimpse of the land of Canaan—what God promised them—and truly, it flowed with milk and honey! Big bonus—the grapes were lush and gigantic. But so were the current occupants of the land. Ten doubters out of the twelve tribesmen sent to scope out the region spread disbelief and angst among all the people. They didn’t believe they could take out the occupying giants, even though God said they would. They lost heart. They’d forgotten what God had done for them. He'd delivered them out of their slavery and suffering in Egypt. How quickly the followers forgot his miracle after miracle after miracle, his great lengths to usher them safely toward what he’d promised them. Yet they came to a place where they grumbled and complained against God, who had set them free. This was a grievance to the Lord. The people rebelled against him when they questioned why the Lord would bring them all that way through the desert only to die; that it would’ve been better to be left in Egypt, to have died in Egypt. They forgot how to trust. Their disobedience caused the Lord to prohibit that unbelieving generation from entering the land, and so they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. It was like a sentence of one year for each of the 40 days they’d been given to scout out the promised land. Only Joshua and Caleb, the two faithful spies out of the twelve, who believed God’s promise for that region despite the giants living there, were allowed to go into the Promised Land after the time of wandering; the only two men from their generation. “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6) I’m reminded right now of the old Christian hymn, “Trust and Obey”, written by John H. Sammis. The melody is filling my head: When we walk with the Lord in the light of his word, what a glory he sheds on our way! While we do his good will, he abides with us still, and with all who will trust and obey. Refrain: Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. Not a burden we bear, not a sorrow we share, but our toil he doth richly repay; not a grief or a loss, not a frown or a cross, but is blest if we trust and obey. [Refrain] But we never can prove the delights of his love until all on the altar we lay; for the favor he shows, for the joy he bestows, are for them who will trust and obey. [Refrain] Then in fellowship sweet we will sit at his feet, or we'll walk by his side in the way; what he says we will do, where he sends we will go; never fear, only trust and obey. We must walk by faith and not by sight. Because we don’t hear or see his deliverance or fulfillment of promises to us—even if the waiting spans decades—does not mean he’s abandoned us, or that he will never do it. As long as we trust and obey. If we lose sight, stray, rebel, have a crisis of faith… it can be a blockage to what’s sometimes just ahead. We might be standing right on the border of our own Canaan. Or if we’re yet a little distance away from it, God still knows what’s best; his timeline is perfect, and we absolutely have to get back to trusting him. We might need to repent. Lord, forgive me for my disobedience. And start again, fresh, for his mercies are new every morning… “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23) Have you been holding deep disappointments or stuck in dark discouragements? Are you weary from years of simply enduring? Do you feel spent or used up from your journey in the desert? Do you wonder, What’s the point? Feel like throwing in the towel? God won’t lead us all this way, just to let us die in the desert. Remember what he’s done in your life. God is not a liar. He won’t lead you toward something, only to let go and watch you flail. He wants to come to your rescue—he wants to be your rescue. Always. He will never only guide and direct you toward something without also providing his grace, strength, power, and protection to cover you, see you through, and to enable you to receive ALL that he has for you. Milk, honey, expansion, and yes, those juicy grapes. If you feel you’ve lost your way, or have trouble believing that he’ll still do what he has said he’d do… If you have trouble trusting him right now. Just ask him: Lord, help me to trust you. If it’s really hard right now, a desperate place, and you feel like you’re losing it, beg him: “Lord, please help me to trust you again! Help me to have hope again. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. I want to know and keep your ways, experience your providence, so I can actually step foot into the promises you still have for my life.” Additional Biblical references: Exodus Numbers 13-14 ![]() What if you strive to compassionately accommodate other people’s needs and live out on a daily basis the Golden Rule in action? As a Christian, you don’t only have a testimony, but you are the living testimony of the Messiah. You breathe, labor, play, eat, slumber, speak an example of “peace in the chaos” love. Then if something goes too far, or you’re maxed out, under pressure, and don’t get the same courtesy; in fact, you’re at the receiving end of rude treatment by loud, aggressive, hotheads (seems like there’s always one in the mix); it only takes one irrational instant, a slip of the tongue once to cause bridges you’ve built with others come crashing down. You can blow up your testimony just like that--poof—gone. I’m not picking on those loud, aggressive, even self-proclaimed hotheads. There’s nothing wrong with that—oh, wait! Yes, there is. That unbridled behavior is always unreasonably unleashed at the expense of another, and to that person it’s belittling, plus it’s unpleasant for everyone. And the self-proclamation is not a hotspur’s badge of honor or excuse to carry on without check. But we can’t control other people’s conduct or reactions to situations, can we? We can only, and oft times should only, gauge our own responses. Sometimes we might deliberate an attempt to calm things down, especially if in leadership positions. Those gifts of discernment and diplomacy can really come in handy! And if we don’t have those gifts, we might ask our Creator for them. There was an incident whereby I witnessed the eruption of an altercation involving many hotheads. It was fun! —(tongue-in-cheek). Fuming individuals went at it in a shouting match. I’m soft-spoken and couldn’t get a word in edgewise. The irony was that the incident everybody took interest in and fought over was mine. It happened to me, involved me, and at the end, it would be my decision what to do. Nobody else had anything to do with it; I think they were just bored that day, opinionated (aren’t we all), wanted to get riled up or something. Because it wasn’t their place to figure out the circumstance. It escalated to a ridiculous level of forgetting what got them from the bowels of the volcano in the first place. In other words, this unasked-for situation heightened needlessly. When I did finally raise my voice to say that I’ll handle things, it’s okay, the group turned on me. I’m not an angry person, but this rare twist made me mad. I had the strongest impulse to tell them all to "bleep" off. I removed myself from the situation and walked away, literally biting my tongue. Shaking my head, too, because as I left, it wasn’t lost on me that they were still hashing out a circumstance regarding me that they could do nothing about anyway. I stewed all night on the episode but tossed my fuming thoughts toward God and had a kvetch session with The Almighty. “What is wrong with people?” I complained to him. “What is wrong with YOUR people!?” I thought about how volatile our testimonies are, and just like that I almost said something I knew I’d regret in the midst of unbelievers who knew me; almost unleashed a curse to those who understood quite well my spiritual stand on things. It didn’t matter what they said or how they said it, as things had already spun out of control in this case. It only mattered how I responded. In my discussion with God, I began to understand the delicate balance between being an example of the “salt of the earth” and slipping up in one instant that causes a testimony to crumble. I’m only sharing this as one case. It’s not like this type of situation hasn’t happened before. We’re human and we have episodes that push us to the limit… unfortunately, over the limit sometimes, and against each other. I have events in my past where I have not held my tongue and I’ve regretted them. In this event, I did everything—not in my power but in God’s—to walk away in a controlled manner that I could cleanly return the day after this altercation more prayed up. And guess what? Everything was great, in fact others were apologetic—not that I was seeking apologies, but I sure appreciated them, and I guess I appreciated their weirdly protective compulsion to concern themselves with my affairs. Anyway, everything was good again, we were all good. Maybe even stronger. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.”—Proverbs 18:21 “No human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be”—James 3:8-10 We strive; we slip-up; we strive… It’s daily—a daily renewal. And those situations we regret, well, we can ask for forgiveness (from God and from others), then those regrets we can let go. Micah 17:18-19: “You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.” If God throws our iniquities into the depths of the sea, we should too. Each day we have is a brand-new chance to come clean, behave with tact, and if we speak, to speak with spiritual salt (i.e. the fruit of the tongue, sweet and beneficial). In loving others, peace, and tongue-control, Tessa ![]() With the war in Israel, and all that means for my relatives and friends abroad and here in the U.S., amid the new wave of antisemitism that’s come to replace the old wave of antisemitism, well, it’s a turbulent time. I have a lot to say, but I’d probably erupt like a volcano right now. And the Lord has been bringing something else to mind, nudging me to write about another upheaval that is a crisis for any American. One day last year, my son’s school went on lockdown. Not a drill this time, but a hard lockdown; the real deal. Long story short, it was purported that armed students planned to do some real damage had it not been for the quick response of the local police and county sheriff’s departments. They took control and managed the situation with the utmost concern and skill; calmed everybody down. Among many, I am grateful to them; nobody got killed or hurt that day. Beyond sad, though, it’s also ridiculous that this sort of scenario has become its own epidemic, a crisis of epic proportions. What happened at my son’s school went mostly under the radar. Barely a blip on the local news. Yet many kids were traumatized; it would be several days before many of them would return to class. Makes me wonder how often this kind of stuff happens around this country and we just don’t hear about it. It was surreal, but I also felt sadness over the offenders of the day—just mixed up, messed up teenagers, who need some real help and divine intervention in their lives... just as do terrorist-aligned groups (ehem). So during this episode last year, I had to have that conversation with my son. In another way, I feel privileged to have had it (some haven’t in other scenarios), but it got me thinking about the conversations and moments we have with our loved ones. There were many moments in the height of that episode where I felt the Lord’s hand of protection and peace; that is divine intervention. It was in the thick of it, classroom lights off, doors locked and bound, tables overturned for taking cover as well as stacked against the door; the commotion, the wracked nerves as the high schoolers waited like sitting ducks. It was then that the flurry of calming texts between my son and I were about what’s most important. The guarantor of peace in the storm, the words of familial bond, of God’s sovereignty, of love. I had to receive and absorb in my heart my only child telling me he’s made his peace with God, come what may. Of course, I love my son, but not just because he’s my own, but I love WHO he is; he’s a solid in every way. I told him so that morning as he left for school. I told him when we texted back and forth during the threat and we didn’t know what was happening—or about to happen—one minute from the next. I shared with him when I saw him next, right after a long and safe hug. And even if he hadn’t proven himself a solid but consistently struggled with one or more things, I’d still remind him of his qualities—because every person has them—and build him up, and love unconditionally, that is, love even when it’s frustrating or scary. I’m thankful that things (words) evolved with us the way they had on that day. There have been a few days when we didn’t start off on a good foot, or he slipped out the door before I got the chance to say, “I love you,” or “Have a great day!” This event (along with the current affairs of the world) has amplified the importance of moments, each moment we have, and our words and actions, one toward another. But the facts are the same: Nobody is guaranteed tomorrow wherever we are; we might not even have the rest of today. Life is fragile. So what does your day look like, and how are you handling it, especially with your loved ones? Have you told your important someone that they matter? Was the last word you spoke to them a kind one? Because if/when the threat or tragedy occurs, you might not get to say what you wish you could. In the moment, if you only have the moment to ensure another of what’s most important between you, what would you say? And then, this most important one: Have you made your peace with God through his son Yeshua? ![]() I did a thing. Started posting on a YouTube channel. The Lord has been bombarding me with visions and dreams with prophetic words meant for other people. I asked him what he wanted me to do with them all. He spoke to my heart about sharing the prophetic words through video. I’d been dragging my feet on the idea, because I couldn’t see myself buckling up in a car or down in a living room to record my talking. I’m just not that chatty. Long story short, something came about. I have a communication channel that fits how he’s created me to express. Still, it's a bit of a learning curve, as I’m not too technically inclined, and I had some nerves to iron out. But I’ve learned to do a lot of things in life by just starting, facing trials and errors, while having a limited budget. My YouTube material is a small beginning, and very fresh—not quite a week old—but had to start somewhere, so here I am. Turns out, though, I really like the process. I find flow and creativity in the undertaking. And I get a good Holy Spirit soak while I create these videos, asking for guidance and anointing as I go. Social media pages are in development, as well, as this will not be a “Tessa Stockton” entity. It is its own, and I believe the start-up of a ministry. I most likely won’t be sharing much here from there, and so wanted to invite you to visit, watch, subscribe, like—whatever or however the Lord leads. I hope to be posting content regularly via YouTube at this time, or as the Lord continues to give me visions and dreams meant to be shared. You can find me on YouTube at (click on the banner below): ![]() The Jewish New Year can be celebrated in different ways. Warm, fun, and food-centric with festive meals and treats, but also quiet and symbolic. Wish others a happy new year with, “L’shanah tovah” (For a good year), which is part of a longer phrase meaning, “May you be inscribed and sealed [in the Book of Life] for a good and sweet new year.” And blow the shofar to declare God the King of the Universe. Rosh Hashanah, meaning Head of the Year, includes reflective prayer and meditation on repentance. There is a custom of Tashlich, meaning to cast, where we go to a body of flowing water, water with life, and cast bread into it, representing casting our sins. It’s symbolic of God casting our sins into the sea of forgetfulness (Micah 17:18-19), where he remembers our wrongdoings no more, and they are carried away (along with the old year). I personally don’t know many people who actually do this. I haven’t always done this, but let’s be honest; we ought to repent daily. A daily renewal with the Lord is required if we want to go higher and deeper with our most holy God. I’m Messianic. And this Hebrew year 5784 is an important one for believers, the Ecclesia, the called-out ones of the faith, the church. The year will necessitate continual repentance and a steadfast abiding with Yeshua. This is a message he’s been communicating for a while. Our need to be girded up and ready. Seek his face, living moment-to-moment with him. Keeping mindful of him, his voice, his guidance. Stay close. So Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit, compelled me to do something different. Led to a weeklong fast preceding the new year, I performed Tashlich during my fast, but was instructed to take only three small pieces of bread. I rolled the pieces so they resembled little doughy balls. Wrapped them up and took them to a designated brook; I reflected, repented, tossed the bread balls in, and they submerged partway in the clear water but floated there. I prayed, and I felt the Lord’s hand on me when he received my offering; I felt his warmth and smile. It was very sweet. Then the balls erupted into a hundred fragments and began to move, floating away toward the connecting river. I sensed the words: small beginning, large increase. Then heard him say, “I will bless you immeasurably.” I broke the fast by the Lord’s appointment at 3:33 on Friday, and with the sweetness of apples dipped in honey. If you’re wondering about the significance of the number 3, the meaning of it depends on the context. The Lord has been highlighting 3 lately in a variety of ways to see, hear, and receive. In this, it’s a reminder of hope… of new beginnings, advanced blessing of undertakings, purity, walking with assurance of identity in Yeshua, and as connected to a land flowing with milk and honey—such as the promised land that the Israelites entered. Yes. This is a good year. L’shanah tovah tikateivu v’teichateimu. |
Tessais a storyteller, and a transcript editor. She's also a Romans 8:28 kind of Jewish girl ... For Tessa's new
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