Covering

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
the one who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her!
How often I wanted to gather your children together,
as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,
but you were not willing!"
                                             Luke 13:34

Jesus expresses the heart of our Father to bring us close to Him, to cover us, to keep us close to His side. We can hear the desire in His voice as He speaks these words.
Throughout scripture, the Father calls out to His people, and how often that call falls on deaf, or unwilling ears.
We might be surprised and ask "When did I ever ignore the LORD? When did I disregard His call to come under His wings?"
Jesus tells us in the verse above that our Father sends people into our lives specifically to draw us to Himself: Prophets, and representatives sent to shepherd His people, awaken His people, speak to His people, lead us to His place of covering, but we often reject these anointed messengers, and ignore the words spoken out of their mouths. Jesus says even He was refused by God's people.
Certainly if we refuse these obvious representatives, how many times have we missed those special ones who have quietly crossed our paths in our everyday lives- those whom we may not even know, but the Father has commissioned them to draw us closer to Him in some way.
Our Father has a deep love and desire to cover us. It costs Him to cover us, but He pays the price willingly.
Adam and Eve rejected their Father's glory covering and exchanged it for the fleeting, mortal glory of man. Even in the face of their distrust and disregard, the LORD covered Adam and Eve with skins, because He knows how vulnerable we are without a covering.
Even when His prophet, Jonah, was angry with God, the LORD caused a plant to grow out of the ground to cover His prophet from the heat of the day.The LORD used the plant to teach Jonah about pity. In this case He was teaching Jonah about showing pity to those who have been uncovered by sin.
When we show pity on others and cover them with our prayers, our love, and our nurture, we are reflecting the character of our Father.
The covering of our Father is a secret place, known only to Him and the one He covers:

"He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the LORD,
"He is my refuge and my fortress;
my God, in Him I will trust."
                               Psalm 91:1-2

What is this secret place of the Most High, this mystery that was hidden, but now revealed to each individual who yields his trust to the LORD? It is the covering created when Jesus spread out His arms on the cross, and covered us beneath them with His own blood. This is the covering created out of pity for those uncovered by sin. This is the same pity the LORD feels as He tried to teach Jonah. He sees us uncovered, and our Father's desire is to provide the covering, as He expressed in the first scripture above. And it costs Him dearly.

It requires from us trust to submit to the covering of the LORD, but once there, we can abide there forever.


"Cover Me"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pzvZ2geWt4