Pilot's Seat or Captain's Chair?

Sometimes the tiniest of thoughts end up a complex and thought provoking idea before you know it. The most recent one came to me when I was praying the other day before I left for work. I found myself asking Abba to “help me to make it to work on time and safely. Help me to make the best of today. Help me to be the man You have made me to be.” Which is all pretty standard in my morning prayers.  This time though, as I reflected on my prayers, one word kept popping up over and over that left me feeling a little uncomfortable. That word was “help”.  The more and more I thought about asking Abba for help to do the things and to be the things He asks of me, the more I got a strange sense of conviction over it. 

Before I go any further, I want to point out that there are several passages throughout the scripture that use the word help. I do not believe there is anything wrong with asking Abba for help. I am merely writing about a personal revelation, if you will, regarding how I have seen the prospect of asking for help. I would not hold my personal convictions over anyone. Please understand that that is not my intention.

My understanding of the word help is someone or something that comes to bear the weight of a certain task alongside you to more efficiently reach a goal. With that in mind, all the times I asked my beloved Yah for help started to feel like I was saying something along the lines of “Hey Abba, could You meet me here to assist me in this? I think I could do it on me onsies, but it would go a lot quicker if I had Your assistance.”  In other words, I felt I was still relying on my own power in part of what I was doing. I wasn’t putting my full trust in Him and casting my burdens completely on Him. I was looking at it, in a way, that I was doing what I could but I needed Him to pick up where I was slacking. 

The rest of the day I was wrapped in these thoughts of what kind of help I truly need. I was trying to wrap my head around an idea that kept spinning in a circular logic. In other words, the Ruach was really pressing on me to hear what He was trying to tell me. The conclusion that I reached, through prayer and submission, is that I don’t need His help. I don’t need His assistance, and He doesn’t need mine. What I do need, is to surrender.  What I need is to completely hand over the reins.

Have you ever watched Star Trek? In every version of it, you have a tight knit crew that works together as a whole to make the whole ship function. You have the Captain, who gives the orders. The Second in Command, who fills in for the Captain when need be.  You also have a navigator, a science officer and so on and so on. Without everyone following the instructions the Capt. gives, everything would be thrown into chaos. Everyone would be doing their own thing and the ship would either do nothing, or implode.  Either way, it is not a good scenario. 

The long winded, and completely nerdy, analogy I’m trying to make is that Abba doesn’t need us as His crew. He can and will handle all of these things for us. We are not the Captain, the Navigator, or second in command. We are the ship.  I can do nothing of my own power, and since I can do nothing of my own power, I don’t need any help doing nothing. What I need, and what I desire more than anything, is to cease to be me and let Abba do what He wants in me. I need Him to mold me into His image He has designed for me. The only thing I need to do is let Him. 

One Love,

Albert C. Coble

*Insert Witty Title Here*

^“ But we are citizens of heaven, and it is from there that we expect a Deliverer, the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.” – Philippians 3:20

The summer before I started middle school my mother took me and my two older siblings to New Jersey to visit family. It was a vacation I will never forget. We went to the boardwalk, ate all the best kinds of worst foods, had bicycle races, cookouts, visited the Statue of Liberty,  the works. The thing that sticks out the most, though, is the trips we made out to the ocean.  My oh my how I love the ocean.  Whether it was digging my toes into the sand, playing in the tide, boating, or just sitting on the beach looking out onto that endless horizon, it was beautiful.

To be honest, it is extremely difficult to put into words the feelings that being on that beach stirred in me. The best way I can describe it is that it felt like home. Like, some deeper part of me knew that this is where I belonged. That it was where I was made to be. Everything in the world was right at that moment. The only negative feeling that existed was the thought that this isn’t where I was staying. I had to leave at some point. I knew it, but I shoved it down and took it all in why I was there.

A few years passed and I felt it again. Only this time, it was more intense. It was like my very soul was burning and charging its way outside of me to go home. It seemed like my flesh was a cage that was holding the true me back from going home. It was the night I accepted Yahusha as my Meshiach.  I finally understood at that point that I was not, in fact, made for this world. I knew that the longing in my being was to be with its Creator. I was not designed for this world. I was made for His. That desire inside of me was to go home. 

One of my favorite quotes comes from C.S. Lewis paraphrasing George MacDonald. He said “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”  I would have to agree one hundred percent with this assessment. As children of The Living Yah, our souls are His very breath. I believe that in times of true, unadulterated worship is when we feel who we really are the most. That burning sensation, the one that is like fire on the tip of your tongue, creeps through your whole body. I believe that is your soul coming to life. Calling out in praise to our Abba and seeking to be one again in His kingdom. 

We are reminded throughout scripture that this is not our home. It is easy to become complacent here. Easy to find what we think is joy and happiness in the things of this world. But we must always be careful not to attach ourselves to this place. Abba’s creation is beautiful, but it is a pale, twisted reflection of what He has waiting for us. The fall separated us from our inheritance only for a short while. Through Yehusha we have been made whole and given the right to reclaim our birthright and to walk in His ways.

“So then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers. On the contrary, you are fellow-citizens with God’s people and members of God’s family.” – Ephesians 2:19

From time to time I still feel that yearning whenever I am around a large body of water. I still don’t understand what exactly it means. What I do know is that, whatever YHVH has in store for me here doesn’t compare to what He has set aside for me later. I won’t get what I deserve, and that is what makes my heart take the most joy.

One Love,

Albert C. Coble