Elul: The King is in the Field!

August.  I know people who thrive in this southern, mosquito-infested heat.  I, on the other hand, am rebuking swarming insects and refusing to be in direct sunlight.  This was the most dreaded, difficult time of year for me.  Keep your swimming pools and sunscreen, give me autumn and winter!  

As we drove home from church one evening, my oldest son asked my husband and me how we could see on skinny country roads at nighttime when another car was coming towards us with blinding headlights.  We had several answers for his mind to ponder, but the one that stuck in my mind was this:

"You never stare at the headlights heading towards you.  Always look at the lane lines on the opposite side of the road.  If you stare at the lights, you will likely veer towards oncoming traffic.  What you're looking at, you'll go towards."

What you are looking at, you will go towards.

When I began to look at the calendar of the Lord, my mindset shifted.  Parts of August and September make up the Hebrew month of Elul.  Elul is a very romantic month.  The name forms an acrostic for Ani l'Dodi v'Dodi li; I am my Beloved's and He is mine.  It is the month when, in Hebraic thought, the King is in the field!  

This seems rather vague to Americans, I've found.  Though those who love Yeshua consider Him their King, this still seems to be a sort of distant, almost fairytale storybook title.  After all, we don't have kings in the United States.  We have a president.  A president is not a sovereign.  God gave Israel a ketuvah-- a covenant of marriage.  He would be their King, and they would be His beloved bride, loved, cared for, provided for, cherished.  We just don't have that relationship with a president.  

What if I told you that your husband, who has been hard at work, was coming across the field to find you where you are toiling away?  Not only was He coming, but He was bringing you gifts!  He is coming home for a special season away from the usual grind.  He has surprises in store and He wants you to ask Him for what you desire.  He wants this time to be with you.  He is the King, but His desire is for you, His beloved.  You have, of course, had access to Him for the entirety of the time, but this homecoming is just more special.  It is like another honeymoon.  It is one of the biggest highlights of your entire year.

This is Elul.  The King is in the Field.  I can look at the (truly horrendous) weather, or I can look at the set times of the Lord.  I can be in misery, or I can acknowledge Him wooing me.  How hurtful were all those years when we ignorantly shoved this intimate month aside in favor of complaints or Netflix or anything else to remove ourselves from the heat?

What you are looking at, you will go towards.

Elul is the preparation month for the upcoming Feast of Trumpets- Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles.  The Lord's choice of preparation before these High Holy Days is simply intimacy with us.  We were grafted into that ketuvah, that marriage covenant, He has with Israel.  We conform to Him and His covenant.  We don't brush it aside as some cultural difference.  We take the culture of our King as His bride.  We turn to Him.  We repent.  Repentance is Teshuvah- "Turn and face Me."  That means, essentially, that we are turning away from other things to give our Husband our full attention.  

He wants your full attention.  Eyes on Him.

After all, what you are looking at, you'll go towards.

Shalom,  

Rachel