Simeon's Secrets will Pave the Way...

There comes a time when all cards must be laid upon the table, face up upon the table. I am not a poker player at all, but when the time comes and the call goes and all final bids are made it becomes the time to show up or fold.

I've watched both happen in the two decades I have been in and around ministry. I watched people show up and when all is laid flat out they choose to shine and I have watched those that only bluffed high tail it out of the arena with the proverbial tail between their legs.

For weeks now, I have paused... I have paused and waited and thought. (A dear friend, who knows me well, expresses that my thoughts are loud and will often text and ask if I am ok.) I am ok! But even while I am ok, I find myself within a paradigm shift of a lifetime.

Saved at 19 and brought in the Charismatic circles almost immediately. I have never ventured out that far...

Except in this season I have had my horizons expand. But in this expansion, I realized I was missing the mark. Not sin per se... but not gravitating to the right questions.

That is until Simeon wouldn't leave me alone. The question, what did Simeon know, haunted me. The journey still continues as does the shifting. Simeon and Anna..... Interesting people, but before we get to them.. may I place them in the context of the religious activity of their day.

The air was full with buzz and religious activity was everywhere. Yet out of all those coming and going, out of all the “religious” activity taking place, we read of only two who noticed the Christ child. ALL that religious activity and God as an infant before them all and only two beheld Him! But what is even more grievous and should bring each of us to a stand still and times of reflection, is that just as many would miss the Man 30 years later.

Religious paradigms... Religious activity... Selfish ambition and the agenda's of men keep one from always seeing and hearing and knowing the ways of the Lord, whether in the form of an infant or of a man!

And so the question I have been sitting with.. The question I have been allowing to purge my very being and stir up more questions then I would even have answers... IS … What secrets did Simeon know? And well, within the second chapter of Luke we read the description and that is all I leave you with.. None of my commentary. Not yet.... But I leave you with my questions.. What secrets did Simeon know? And I leave you with Scripture:

And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man wasrighteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to carry out for Him the custom of the Law, then he took Him into his arms, and blessed God, and said,

“Now Lord, You are releasing Your bond-servant to depart in peace,
According to Your word;
For my eyes have seen Your salvation,
Which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
A Light of revelation to the Gentiles,
And the glory of Your people Israel.”

And His father and mother were amazed at the things which were being said about Him. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed— and a sword will pierce even your own soul—to the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

 And there was a prophetess, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years and had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage,and then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers. At that very moment she came up and began giving thanks to God, and continued to speak of Him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.