Writings by Barri Cae Mallin

No Aspartame here

Tuesday 27 January 2004 - 15:23:53
To a hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet. Prov. 27:7

They had just experienced the greatest deliverance ever. God had parted the Red Sea, and they had been miraculously delivered from their enemies, the Egyptians (Ex. 15:19). Yet they came to Marah, where the waters were bitter, unfit for consumption. Three days without water, and now this? They complained, they fretted and they murmured. God brought us here for this? Oy!

The word marah in Hebrew means bitter. At the Passover Seder, one of the elements that we eat is the marror. It usually is horseradish, and it is eaten to remind us of the bitterness that the children of Israel endured while they were slaves under Pharaoh.

Life at times brings bitterness into our lives. It might be financial distress, death, grief, loneliness, divorce, dashed hopes, disappointments, even disappointments with God. Even though we are believers, we are not exempt from pain, sorrow and the bitterness of life's trials. You can identify with the Children of Israel. The bitter waters of life surround you.

Moses cried out to the LORD (verse 25) and the LORD showed him a tree.and when Moses cast the tree into the waters, the waters became sweet. The word for tree in Hebrew is aytz, and it can also mean wood, stick, lumber, gallows, or pieces of wood. In your Shur wilderness, the LORD has cast a tree into your bitter waters. That wood, that gallows (wood structure of death), that tree is the element that turns your bitterness into sweetness. Yeshua was placed on the wood feeding trough (aytz) at His birth, and He was placed on the wooden cross at His death. When we look at any bitterness in our lives, Yeshua endured worse. The cross, in light of our suffering, becomes the sweetness for any bitter things we must endure. To a hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet when seen in the light of the cross.

Any time God calls you to die, He empowers you to be able to endure, because you live the crucified life. Yeshua lives within you. You receive that mysterious power to overcome sin, and to pursue obedience through faith. All because of the wood, the tree, the cross. This union with Messiah Yeshua is at times painful, but oh, it is sweet, it is precious. It is the way to life. It is never easy to bear the cross, yet with it brings a fellowship with our Yeshua.

The Children of Israel came to the end of themselves at Marah, and God brought them a tree (aytz).
We come to the end of ourselves, and God brings us a Tree (aytz) the cross. As Yeshua endured the cross, He pleased God the Father. As we endure the cross, we enter into the fellowship of the cross, and we please God the Father. This is the only way to be conformed to the image of Yeshua. The cross, the tree (aytz) leads home.
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us,
let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us,
and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith,
who for the joy set before Him endured the cross,
despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hbr. 12:1-2

Copyright © Barri Cae Mallin.