A young friend of mine recently wrote her status on facebook as: "Be at rest O my soul for the Lord has been good to you."

I like that. Be at rest O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you. He has been good and will continue to be so because He is good in and of Himself and does not change.

The older I get, the more I understand that there is a season for everything - a time to keep and a time to lose, a time to gather and a time to cast away, a time to mourn and a time to dance.

There is an ebb and flow to life - nature itself teaches us that.

David said, "Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even a weaned child." Ps 131:2.

The soul does indeed clamor for attention or make a fuss when its needs or expectations are not met. David learned how to wean himself from the incessant demands of his own soul by learning how to rest in the Lord.

Paul learned it also. He said, "For I have learned  in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound... I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Phil.4:11, 12.

"But godliness with contentment is great gain..."Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. It is a mark of maturity and it honors God.

A soul weaned has learned to forget itself in the pursuit of Him.

"But the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake: but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out, and stood in the entering of the cave." I Kings 19: 11-13.

He wrapped his face in his mantle. His face was his flesh. What was his mantle? His mantle was prophetic authority. The authority of someone who not only walks closely with his God but is His mouthpiece too.

He covered his face, his flesh with that which the Lord had called him to, had commissioned him to. He covered it with what God had brought him into and had made him into.

What makes up a prophet's mantle? I think a part, and no small part, is  suffering. T Austin-Sparks knew it. He wrote:

"He baptises a soul into an anguish; He throws upon someone - or some little company - the mantle of His own terrible disappointment, dissatisfaction, and grief because of things as He sees them spiritually amongst His own people. That is how God brings things into being. Men do it in other ways, but that has always been God’s way. It has cost the instrument its life every time (not necessarily that it has died a sudden death, or even laid down its life in martyrdom, but it has cost the instrument its life)."

But with the suffering comes something else. And that is the power and authority that come from God alone. Elijah cast his mantle upon Elisha after the Lord told him to anoint Elisha to function in his stead. Later, the Lord intended to take Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind. God sends him first to Bethel, then to Jericho and then to Jordan. Each place has a significance. Throughout the journey, Elisha is determined to stick with Elijah.

When they got to the Jordan River, Elijah took his mantle, wrapped it together and smote the waters, and they were divided, so that the two went over on dry ground. II Kings 2:8.

After Elijah and Elisha passed over, Elijah asked Elisha what he wanted him to do for him before he was taken away. Elisha asked for a double portion of Elijah's spirit. Elijah said that if Elisha saw him when he was taken, his request would be granted. Elisha did see it. He saw the horsemen and the chariot of Israel. Then he rent his clothes and put on the mantle that had fallen from Elijah.

Elisha went back and stood by the bank of Jordan; and he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters and said, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted and Elisha went over.

There are many Jordans to cross. Oh for the faith and authority to ask "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" and to expect an answer.

Not much is said about Issac in the Bible. He was not like Abraham,  "the father of faith," nor like Jacob who wrestled with God. To Abraham the promises were given and in Jacob we see the epic struggle between the natural man and his spirit. Issac's life seems rather dull in comparision to that of his father's and his son's. On the surface, he seems to serve little more than a link. But there was really quite a bit more to Isaac.

After Abraham's death, there was a famine. Issac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines in Gerar. The Lord appeared to him there and told him not to go down into Egypt but to sojourn in Gerar. The Lord repeated the promises He had given Abraham to Issac. Issac dwelt in the city of Gerar and the Lord blessed him until he grew so great that it alarmed the people there. Abimilech told him to leave. So Issac left and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar. Issac was forced to leave his comfort zone and strike out.

Issac was back in the wilderness - the place of testing, the place where one is plowed. There was no water because his father's wells had been stopped up. After Abraham's death the Philistines had stopped up all the wells that Abraham had dug. So, Issac began re-digging them. And he called their names after the names by which his father had called them. The very fact that the wells had names is significant. There was meaning and purpose that had been discovered by Abraham while digging these wells and it had to be rediscovered by the son. There were also new wells to be dug and meaning and purpose for Issac to discover on his own.

Issac's servants dug a well in the valley and the herdsmen of Gerar fought with Issac's herdsmen, saying it was theirs. Issac called the well "Esek" because they "strove with him." Issac dug another well but was forced to strive for and lose that one too. He called it "Sitnah."

So Issac  moved and dug yet another well and this time no one tried to take it. He named that well "Rehoboth" which meant: "Now the Lord has made room for us and we will be fruitful in the land." And Issac went from there to Beer-sheba. The same night the Lord appeared to him. And he said, "I am the God of Abraham, your father. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your offspring because of my servant Abraham."

Then Issac built an altar and worshipped the Lord right there. And he dug another well.

The next day Abimilech traveled from the city of Gerar to Issac. When he arrived, Issac was surprised and asked him why he had come since Abimilech "hated him and had driven him away." Abimilech confessed that the Lord had blessed Issac and he wanted a peace covenant with Issac. Abimilech said, "You are now blessed of the Lord. I think there should be an oath between us."

Something had happened to Issac from the time he left Gerar until that present moment. He had a testimony. Abimilech recognized it. Driven from his home and everything that was comfortable and settled, Issac had to move out and trust God. And God had come through for him.

Why had Abraham's wells been stopped up after his death by the Philistines? It is always the conflict of the natural man's strength against the faith of the spiritual man. Stop up the source of the spiritual man's life and he will be powerless. There will be no advancement of the kingdom. There will be no occupation. There will be no room for him in the land. It has always been this way and will continue until the Lord's return I suppose. How rare are true men and women of faith. How true the scripture that says the world is not worthy of them.

Where was Issac when his father's wells had been stopped up? I assume he was preoccupied with life in the city. But when he was forced to move out, to take up the journey again, to walk by faith, to "flesh out"  the promises, to work out his own salvation with fear and trembling, then he unstopped his father's wells and remembered their names. Then he dug wells of his own.

And, on the very day of Abimilech's departure, after he had gone, Issac's servants came to him and told him that the well they had just dug had produced water. Isaac called it "Sheba" which means "oath." Oath speaks of covenant.

Not too long ago I was reading Ezekiel 44. It impacted me. All of a sudden it was like a great light was shining on things that have troubled me about our modern Christian culture.  I think God is the Great Divider. Scripture bears that out. He divides between the clean and unclean, the holy and unholy, the sheep and the goats, wheat and tares. His Word is a two-edged sword dividing soul and spirit.

In Ezek 44, God divides and distinguishes between the sons of Zadok and the rest of the Levitical priesthood. When Israel went after their idols, the Levites allowed the uncircumcised of heart and flesh to enter into the sanctuary and then they ministered unto them before their idols. Because of that the Lord lifted up His hand against them and said that they would not enter the Holy of Holies to come near to Him. They would bear their shame.  He would still allow them to be keepers of the House, for all the service thereof. But they would not come near Him.

The sons of Zadok, on the other hand, were a different matter. He says, " But the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok that kept the charge of my sanctuary, when the children of Israel went astray from Me, they shall come near to Me to minister unto Me, and they shall stand before Me to offer unto Me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord God: They shall enter into My sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table, to minister unto Me, and they shall keep My charge." v. 15,16

These priests were distinguished by the Lord from the other priests and given the unspeakable privilege of ministering to Him. The Lord says of them - "And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean."

Where are the sons of Zadok today? There is such dire need for priestly men and women to teach the body how to discern between holy and unholy, clean and unclean, spirit and flesh.

Unto that priesthood God gives Himself as a possession. That is mind boggling! The Lord Almighty says, "I am their inheritance: and ye shall give them no possession in Israel: I am their possession." Maybe that is how Abraham could be possessor of heaven and earth - because he possessed God Himself. Maybe God commits Himself to and allows Himself to be possessed by that kind of faith.

The Lord's sheep know His voice and follow Him. He cares that they are fed. When sheep are willing to lose themselves in order to gain Him, He commits Himself to that kind of abandonment. He shows up when and where they are gathered. And it doesn't matter if it is in a church or a gym, a living room or a street corner. His presence is the distinguishing factor.