“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.”
Matthew 5:8
 
 
Half-way into the last painting I shared with you concerning Aaron’s staff, which burst into bloom overnight, I had a sense that the painting would be part of a diptych, though I didn’t know why. At the time I wondered how it would relate to Tsemach (the Righteous Branch). After finishing the Tsemach painting and putting a layer of gold on a new 24” x 60” canvas I remembered a prophetic word a lady had given for the ladies going to a women’s retreat that I leave for this coming week. In a mind’s eye vision, she saw us striking a rock and water flowing freely like it did when Moses struck the rock, bringing living water to the ladies. For a reason, unknown to me at the time, her vision stuck with me and here it was coming to mind again. All of sudden I knew this time I was going to paint Moses’ staff hitting the rock and water flowing from it. I had no idea what to call this painting or what it would represent, but in faith I began painting this scene in a similar way I had with the previous painting of Aaron’s rod. Not long into the process, I went back to the original prophesy that went with Tsemach painting in Jeremiah 23 and I quickly had the answer to what this imagery would symbolize: “Yahweh Tsidequenu,” The Lord our Righteousness.
 
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    “when I will grow a righteous Tsemach for David.
        He will be a king who will rule wisely.
            He will do what is fair and right in the land.
              In his lifetime, Judah will be saved,
         and Israel will live in safety.
           This is the name that he will be given:
   Yahweh Tsidquenu.”
 
In the realization that God was wanting to speak concerning His Name, “The Lord our Righteousness,” I felt immediately led to Hosea’s plea in Hosea 10:12 :
 
“Sow righteousness for yourselves,
    reap the fruit of unfailing love,
and break up your unplowed ground;
    for it is time to seek the Lord,
until he comes
    and showers his righteousness on you.”
 
 
 “Seek the Lord,” seemed to shout at me from the page. As the imagery from Hosea’s words sunk into my heart, I saw the water flowing from the rock again, but this time I could see it representing His righteousness being poured out over our hearts that once were as hard and as dry as the rock Moses struck. So I began searching His Word for every reference where He exhorts us to seek Him and the more I searched, the more I saw the correlation between seeking His righteousness and the previous painting about Him hastening to perform His words:
 
“Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake their ways
    and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will freely pardon…
As the rain and the snow
    come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
    without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
Isaiah 55: 6-7, 10-11
 
Did you see that? In seeking Him and repenting of our worldly way of thinking, He is faithful to come as the “Lord our Righteousness,” and purify us because of His mercy. He then gives His word to accomplish what He desires and “watch over His words to perform them,” as He encouraged me in the last painting of Aaron’s staff blooming overnight in His Presence. Now I knew why we couldn’t have one without the other. Without a turning in repentance and seeking Yahweh Tsidquenu to come and break up our stony hearts and shower His righteousness over us, we will not see the breakthrough and new life we are longing for. Just as the Disciples waited for the Holy Spirit to come and transform them at Pentecost, so we at this crucial time in history, must do the same. It doesn’t seem an accident again that I am finishing this painting not long before the time when we celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. It is time once again to seek the Lord while He may be found and stir up a hunger and thirst for righteousness like never before in our hearts. For those who do, He promises to shower His righteousness over you and you will be filled!
 
Be encouraged! The God who brought water from a rock for the Israelites in the desert is able to bring an outpouring of His Spirit to refresh and awaken His people again - don't lose hope! If God can take scared, timid and weak fishermen and by His Spirit set them on fire to change the known world at the time, how then will He not do the same for us if we are willing vessels? Keep praying, watching, breaking up the unplowed ground in your heart, seeking our Tsemachand preparing the way for Yahweh Tsidequenu until He comes and pours His righteousness on us!