Behold

I have the spiritual gift of skepticism. Now it’s not all bad.  It served me well as a middle school principal. When dealing with discipline situations, I found it was good to be a bit skeptical.  You have to see the truth interwoven through stories and perspectives. And that’s just the parents.

Awhile back, I was woken from my sleep with the distinct hearing of my name. Bruce. It actually woke me up. Then I heard the word Behold. That’s it, Behold. I’ve spent some time convincing myself I was just dreaming. It was the food I ate that night. It couldn’t possibly mean anything.  But I started looking for explanations of the word Behold. I searched the internet and asked trusted friends. Each perspective was unique and helpful.

  • The typical meaning is to fix your eyes upon something, see with attention, attend or fix the mind upon an object.
  • The Hebrew word is ‘hineni’, which means “Here I am.” The Greek word is ‘theomai’ which is used for visionary seeing; the apprehension of higher realities.
  • “Behold – I am doing a new thing.”  It was a call to pay attention, to notice something different, to focus one’s attention on something other than where you are focusing now.
  • This from a friend:

“I believe that God does speak to us through dreams. I think other confirmations/clarifications are important to form our interpretations and understandings of dreams, as well as test the validity of them. The simple sense of what you describe is that God is wanting to focus your attention on something God is doing or about to do. The question is, what is that? The straight forward prayer of ‘Lord, what are you wanting me to behold?’ offered up repeatedly followed by intentional spiritual listening might lead to greater understanding.”

Still not exactly sure, but I’m beholding to those trying to help me figure it out. Or was it the enchiladas?

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