My house is very full and loud. Sometimes it is difficult to get alone with Adonai and seek His face and spend time in His presence, so I decided to go out to the garage last night and spend some time with Him. I turned on my Spotify and hit my praise and worship playlist and just let go of my day, my concerns, the thoughts of this world. As tears streamed down my cheeks, I reflected on what I've learned and written about Jeremiah. I purposefully put everything to my peripheral so that my gaze was upon my Savior, which can sometimes be difficult when you are praying for healing, salvation, and other needs for those you love. I began to think about how Jeremiah was beaten, tortured, imprisoned, threatened with death, stuck in a pit up to his neck, and all the while we never see that he backed up, gave up, or stopped proclaiming the Word of God. As a matter of fact, he proclaimed it all the louder while in prison. I want my heart to be as steadfast.
I cannot tell you what song was playing, but I had my right hand lifted towards heaven and my left upon my chest and I could feel my heart beating. The only way that I can describe the following few moments is that it was like being in a bubble of white noise. The song faded away, and all I could focus on was the beating of my heart. I felt weighted and knew something special was going on. When the moment broke, I grabbed my phone and looked up the word "heartbeat" in Hebrew. It took me to the site wordhippo.com and I found something incredible.
The first word listed for heartbeat means pulse, so I went to the Brown, Driver, Briggs Lexicon to see what it had to say about it. When we hear pulse, we instantly think of taking our pulse, our heart rate, but in the Hebrew, it is the word zeroa (zay-ro-ah) meaning something sown, such as vegetables. In looking at another word with the same spelling, we find the word zera (zeh-rah) which means seed, sowing, or offspring. Adonai sowed our very heartbeat into us while we were yet in our mother's womb. [13] "For you fashioned my innermost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb. [14] I thank you because I am awesomely made, wonderfully' your works are wonders - I know this very well. [15] My bones were not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. [16] Your eyes could see me as an embryo, but in your book all my days were already written; my days had been shaped before any of them existed. [17] God, how I prize your thoughts! How many of them there are! [18] If I count them, there are more than grains of sand; if I finish the count, I am still with you. Psalm 139:13-18
Another word for heartbeat listed is one I cannot find a listing for in the lexicons; however, I can find the root of the word which is naqiy (naw-kee) which mean blameless, clean, clear, exempted, free, guiltless, innocent, and quit. It means free from punishment. The word listed at word hippo means qualm, repentance, or remorse. When Adonai formed us and sowed our heartbeat within us, it was made for repentance so that we can be clean, guiltless, and seen as innocent when we accept Messiah, Yeshua as our Savior. [12(10)] Create in me a clean heart, God; renew in me a resolute spirit. [13(11)] Don't thrust me away from your presence, don't take you Ruach Kodesh away from me. [14(12)] Restore my joy in your salvation, and let a willing spirit uphold me. Psalm 51:13(11)-14(13)
The next entry for heartbeat that stood out means yearning or longing. Our heartbeat is sown with a longing for our Creator, to be reunited with Him. It is said that we have God shaped hole in our heart, that only He can fill. It is why we can fill our lives with all the things this world has to offer, yet still be left unfulfilled. David said in Psalm 63:2(1), "O God, you are my God; I will seek you eagerly. My heart thirsts for you, my body longs for you in a land parched and exhausted, where no water can be found." It is only with Yeshua that we find that water. "Yeshua answered, 'Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I will give him will never be thirsty again! On the contrary, the water I give him will become a spring of water inside him, welling up into eternal life." John 4:13-14
Proverbs 4:23 warns, "Above everything else, guard your heart; for it is the source of life's consequences." and in Luke 6:45, Yeshua said, "The good person produces good things from the store of good in his heart, while the evil person produces evil things from the store of evil in his heart. For his mouth speaks what overflows from his heart." Whatever the longing of our heartbeat, good or evil, is what will flow from us. Sweet, living water of life, or bitter waters that one can not drink. This leads us to to the final entry for the word heartbeat, which means arrogant, gabahh (gaw-bah). In the BDB there is an entry for gabahh that is rather interesting. It lists the word "lofty" and says, a. in a good sense, encouraged in the ways of Yahweh. "In his heart he highly regarded Adonai's ways; moreover, he (Y'hoshafat) removed the high places and sacred poles from Y'hudah."2 Chronicles 17:6 b. elsewhere in a bad sense, be haughty. "Before being ruined, a person's heart is proud; before being honored, a person must be humble." Proverbs 18:12 In James 4:10, it says, "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up." We must always guard that our heart beats with humility and encouraged in the ways of Adonai, and not prideful or lofty before Him.
Our heartbeat is a witness of not only the creative power of Adonai, but of His care and love for us. He designed our hearts to beat for Him, and He alone knows the number of beats that our heart will have from before our birth to our final one. Our eternity lies within the span of a single heartbeat. Listen to your heart. What is is saying to you? Is it calling you to repentance? Is it calling you to a deeper walk with Him? Is it calling you to fill that space of emptiness and longing with His love and presence? May the rest of your heartbeats be filled with the rhythm of Heaven and beat in time with His, for He gave all of His heartbeats here on earth for us, not a single one was wasted, so that we may have a life of heartbeats in Him.
Comments