Better days ahead?

This past Wednesday the 27th of August was the first day of the Hebrew Month of Elul, the sixth month, if you start a count at Nissan, the month of Passover.

By the way there is a great smart phone app out there for converting dates from the modern calendar to the Hebrew calendar produced by appstudio.

Therefore it’s the sixth month of the six year in what I count as the fifth, seven year cycle. If that sentence means nothing to you, reading my previous posts #1, #10 and #11 may help.

I want to focus on what we observed in the last six years. There can be no doubt now that this seven year segment, which started in the fall of 2008 and is slated to end next fall, has bitten a lot a people just as you would expect from the birds and fish of day five. It often seemed like buzzards and sharks were the order of the day.

As always some of us were at the right place at the right time and caught some of that explosive new life but for many, this has truly been a difficult six years.

Regardless what situation you find yourself in now, this is not the time to panic. Consider Noah’s story about the birds. He had survived a great tumult, but was anxious to find out when things would get better. Sound familiar?

The text tells us that;    

The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible. After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth.  Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground.  But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark.  He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark.  When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. Genesis 8:5-12

So let’s walk this through, you can make the case that the story is telling us that the birds begin to fly from Noah’s ark the 10^th day of the eleventh month, 40 days after the tops of the mountains where seen on the first day of the tenth month. The eleventh month can be considered a fifth month if you count the seventh month as a new beginning, just as the Hebrew calendar counts the seventh month, Tishrei, as the first month of the annual year. (I know this is a difficult concept for westerners to get in our heads, you are going to have to study it. There are plenty of sources out there to explain it)

So 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 could be thought of at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I understand this is may seem a reach, but is it not logical that a month with so much information about birds, would have a fifth day connection?

Therefore the indication is that the raven left the ark on the tenth day of the month of birds, month five.  As each seven days pass the indications improve. Of course right from the start the raven has no problem, he has plenty of carrion to cleanup, so his food needs are taken care of immediately. The next bird sent out is a dove which needs vegetation. The dove soon returns as it cannot find even a perch. Interestingly the third time a bird is sent out, the dove stays out till evening and returns with vegetation, an olive leaf. (New life in the third) The fourth time Noah sends out a bird, the dove does not return indicating the dove has found food and shelter.

Therefore the implication is that in a fifth day pattern, if things have been bad, they begin to improve slowly as the fifth segment of time moves along. I feel strongly that this is exactly what I have seen in the last six years, in other words in my view the events of the fall of 2008 seem to have started a day five like, pattern for this seven year segment which ends next fall.  

Thus I expect the business climate will continue to slowly improve as we begin this last year of the fifth set of sevens. Things are still volatile, the buzzards and the sharks are still out there but now the doves also start to find places to rest and feed.

There you go. How about that for an alternative way to read the Bible?

Gather what you can as you prepare to remember the economic reset which should happen next fall. If you find yourself a long way from where you wish you were, as we head to the end of the seventh, take some comfort in the indication that things are improving and from this passage out of Zephaniah.

“I will gather those who grieve about the appointed feasts—
They came from you, O Zion; The reproach of exile is a burden on them.  

Zephaniah 3:18 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Zephaniah has given me a lot of comfort over the years with these words. Clearly the prophet is commending those who grieve the appointed times, he recognizes that often we cannot do all that we wish we could in regards to following all the revealed instruction about the appointed times. 

Zephaniah is telling us that living in a place that ignores these things is a burden on those who wish to follow the instructions concerning the appointed times.

That would be us.

Always remember, timing matters. But God looks on the Heart!