Finding Elohim In The Family Unit

by Christopher (From Brutal Planet)

In doing my radio series "The Garden of Peace" I have been pondering a great deal on the attributes of Elohim and how our roles in our family exemplify the 3 echad attributes of Elohim.  

The past few months I have been studying countless hours on what it means to be a servant, what it means to be a man of YHWH.  While studying and meditating on the Word in terms of edification, and being at the age of 32, I tended to focus a little on my own mortality, and I then had to ask the question, "How do I want to be remembered?  What would be my legacy when I leave this world?".  This is something we as men do not like to think about but it is something that we must address in our own lives.  I concluded I would want my legacy to be not that, "Christopher was a great teacher" but rather, "Christopher was a good man, and a servant".  Though there is more prestige in being "a great teacher" I think our hidden intention can cause eternal problems if that were our reason for servitude and as a man, I often need a gut check.  There is a balancing mechanism that YHWH put into place that causes us to be able to live a set apart life and to be able to properly apply the Torah.  And that is the family unit....what do I mean?
Though an unmarried manm who has never been married, I notice that many of us men have interpreted the role of "head of the household" horribly incorrectly, we tend to recite the hold line from the Honeymooner's "King of the castle, Lord of the manor" and we think we are a towering man on a horse that demands respect and must be revered.  Let me ask this, "Does anyone revere a tyrant?  Or do they simply just try and not be killed?".  
Shalom Bayit (Peace in the Home) is always the goal and should be the goal of a man, but it is important for him to realize his role and the role of his wife and children at the same time, and it is not the role that is taught in many cult like sects of the Hebrew Roots (and there are some within our faith I am sad to say).  The man is commonly the face of the family, when a wife goes to lunch with a new friend, the conversation seems to always turn to, "so what does your husband do, how long have you been married etc" and these are questions wives are asked often, and it is to be expected given that she took his last name.  Now she knows this, and she realizes that he is her mirror. I get men telling me often about marital problems and a "nagging wife", yet they do not realize why their wife nags them.  The thing us men must realize is that a woman's family is her honor, especially her husband, and she wants the world to see the amazing things within her husband that sometimes only she sees.  Thus her job is to refine him, so that the world will see him as a tzaddik.  
Isaiah 11:2 refers to the Ruach haKodesh as "wisdom", notice as well that the Ruach haKodesh grammatically is female.  Thus one's wife is his wisdom, she is the one who helps refine her husband because he is her honor and her love for him wants the world to see what she sees in him, this is why when a wife is distressed it is usually because she is trying to get her husband to see something that he does not see.  Notice that the women in the Scripture seem to be the ones who understood the underlining things.  Remember when Yeshua told Martha, "your brother will rise again" and she responded with, "I know my Master on the resurrection day".  One's wife is their refiner, they correct not for selfish reasons but actually for the most selfless reasons in the world, it is because they care how it is how their husbands are perceived and they want to be echad with their husband they want to dance together with their husband in their walk in Torah and Messiah as well as in other aspects of their lives together and when we act as two polar magnets we see this cannot be achieved.  The walk together must feel like a gliding motion where one knows when to glide to the right and two the left and back and forward with their spouse without tripping, and it is through a constant correction from one's wife this can be achieved, and it then becomes natural and as you grow together there are new moves added in which symbolizes the love for one another growing through marriage as opposed to fizzling out.  
And it is important for men to understand, their role is that of a servant, notice YHWH the father fed the children of Israel when they were hungry, notice on their journey they had the shekinah over-seeing them.  Notice as well how he provides for you each and every day the things we take for granted, could your house stand without him?  Of course not.  Could you breathe without him assembling the system he did for the plants to produce oxygen and the plants to breathe in our CO2?  Of course not.  This is why us men are called to be providers, and there is a parallel in heaven of what we experience here on earth, which is why YHWH put great emphasis on on His very own family model so that we may conduct ourselves as a mirror in the same way.
 I am amazed when I see a young person put on their tallit, and their tzit tzit, maybe a kippa. They are so proud of the significance of these things, and they are the first to tell a grandparent or a family friend what it is, what it represents and they bring honor to these things. Often times we are like the stubborn Galatians, we wear our tzit tzit, because it us commanded and at times even forget it is there, it is a part of a routine for many of us. I think children really help us get the proper context of these things, by seeing their eyes light up when they get excited to serve their Melek Yeshua and they help remind us of what it is we have forgotten and taken for granted. This is why Yeshua always loved to be around the children and said we must be like them. Sometimes, we hit a part in our walk where we become callus, we become uninterested and the fire fizzles out a little. I think this is why children are vastly important in the family unit, their reactions, and their wonder and their kindness helps remind us of what us adults have lost at stages in our walk. And it is interesting that Yeshua came as "The Son of the Father", though he came to re-establish the marriage covenant and he also fulfilled the role of the child in your own family as well, cause he reminded us, why we keep Torah, why we must honor the Father and he gave us that heart of flesh like we had when we were children by setting the halaka straight. Just like your children do when they put on their tallit, tzit tzit and kippa on for the very first time. When you see them do that, you are reminded and you see Yeshua through them.
This is why I dare say, that many of the commandments we cannot fully fulfill and apply outside of the family model, we cannot see and experience the 3-D model of our walk in Torah and Messiah outside of the family model.  

---