Inside Israel

Once again, it’s time to hear from our sister in Jerusalem about what she is witnessing there as a believer in Yeshua. Put your prayer shawls on and pray for Israel and Sister J. Now here she is —

I greet you dear sisters and brothers in The Name above all names, Yeshua h’Meshiach, Jesus Christ.  He IS Lord.  May He be glorified and blessed and may you be blessed and encouraged; HE IS HOLY.

“There are just too many people, Lord…I can’t love them all…or even a few…How do YOU love this many people?…Lord?…I NEED a baptism into Your Love to be filled with YOUR love for others.  I don’t have it! Fill me with Your Spirit. I am lacking and in need. ”

This was my desperate conversation with The Lord on the crowded train earlier this week, BEFORE  13 year old Hallel Yaffa Ariel was murdered in her bed by a 17 year old knife wielding terrorist. And then 48 year old Miki Mark, father of 10 was gunned down in his car, his wife and 2 of his teen children badly wounded.

Yet I think that it was AFTER the British vote to leave the European Union, which I and most of the Israelis felt was VERY brave. A moral decision in the face of each one knowing that it was going to hurt them financially.  In spite of losing MONEY, standing, face and free travel and trade, they did it ANYWAY!  BRAVO! We applaud you for taking a difficult moral high ground in the face of the immoral decisions being made by the EU.  We read that it was a vote for hatred and against immigration, but we KNOW how the press works. I pray that God will honor this move and send revival! Israel is (generally) impressed!

Moving on: I think it was also just AFTER our agreement with Turkey and then the horrific bombing in Istanbul airport, the running of critical events one into another. And in the midst of all of the oppressive heat wave here and floods around the world, a world at the door of judgment eh?  Upside down and tumbling over, but WE HAVE AN ANCHOR!!

Yes, it was in the midst of all of this that I was on the train.  It was HOT.  It was CROWDED.  I was TIRED!  Again I looked at the assortment of objects vying for space with people around the train car.  Aside from all of the back packs, the shopping carts in all sizes, shapes and colors, there was a bicycle, a seeing eye dog, baby carriages and in came three boys juggling a super sized cage for raising canaries.

There is a unique type of baby transporter that was widely used on the kibbutzim.  It is actually a large playpen on wheels with a handle for pushing and can easily transport 6 two year olds.  They take up a LOT of room,but are VERY handy.  Thankfully there was none on the train THAT day, but that was when I looked around and said, “I do NOT love all of these people, Lord, but You do!  HELP!”

I began to think back to when I first became His disciple.  Did I love then?

It was MUCH easier to love the neighbor down the dirt road and the people in the feed store.  There just were NOT so many’ of them.  One at a time, I could pray.  One at a time I could love.

I remembered a time when I sat outside a mall with my Baby waiting for some people shopping inside.  I sat there for a long time and began to pray for all of the people coming in and out and wonder if that was really praying when suddenly I felt The Holy Spirit say to me, “That one is Mine!” And I looked and sure enough, He was hearing my prayers and assured me that He DID know the hearts of each one.

But now?  “THERE ARE JUST TOO MANY LORD!  WHERE IS YOUR LOVE IN ME?”

Revival!  That is what I have prayed about for YEARS!  And perhaps I more than anyone need it now in MY heart. A fresh outpouring and infilling of His Spirit.  I met Him during real Revival. Indeed I am a product of the prayers of that time…and the … well… I really feel it was (is) too Holy to taint with my words of description.  Because I had no experience BEFORE that time, I thought that was the normal state that every disciple walked in all of the time. Praying 24/7, filled constantly with His Words, moving from leading one to Him and then another. Meetings full of those falling on their faces before His holiness. I did not know that this wasn’t “normal Christianity.”

But even when I was removed from that wondrous season, I had seen and tasted enough to know that there was no other place for me than by His heart.   HOWEVER, there is nothing we can do or work up or pray up imitate.  It is only something that we can hunger for and cry out for until He opens the heavens and pours Himself down upon us!

“LOVE, Lord!  Do I even REALLY love my BROTHER, which you command that I must?”

I have found myself waking in the night praying for Him to pour out His Spirit and send Revival.  Oh, I know I’m NOT alone.  I’m sure that there are many of you praying the same thing also for years.  But if not now, when?  The times are surely desperate and changing so quickly.

It makes me wonder how long I will be able to continue these letters?  So few even read email anymore, with social media being so popular.  Snail mail has become almost unheard of and cell phones have replaced landlines.  Will this all collapse with the door closed?

So, while I can be, I am happy to be your “street walker and train rider here,” offering my eyes and ears AND my heart, although in poverty of love, still seeking His love.

 

My work place has become more intense lately.  I guess since my boss has had his practice for about 35 years now. His patients [as well as all of us workers] are aging as I have been there nearly 18 years. Death and impending death open up many opportunities to point toward the door of LIFE and I seem to have more and more opportunities like that lately.

I am shocked at how bold I have become at addressing death and HIM with those who suddenly find themselves approaching it.  Surely those of you who are health professionals in your countries find yourselves in such positions.  The main challenges that I find are:

1) language (although I can now function well in Hebrew I am not fluent with a depth that is needed to touch on deep things and 2) His Name to my people.  Still a wall, a veil, blinders, and an offence.

Ahuva (pronounced Ah’hoo’vah, which means God’s love) was the last patient in the office on Friday before we closed for Shabat.  Thankfully the office was now empty and when she came in I instinctively got up and put my arms around her and went and sat down with her.  She began to weep.  The single mother of two unmarried daughters in their early 20s, she finds herself with a new and advanced cancer.  She just got the diagnosis.  She begins to speak through tears: “I’m scared.  I find I am suddenly scared of everything.  I have never been like this but I am scared and without hope.”

I prayed silently.  Words began to come about how we have been through the doors once already when we are born and we know that our time here is finite.  She relaxes in my arms.

“But it is so dark,” she said gazing into my eyes.

I begin to tell her about my life BEFORE I met Him and how I had no hope, while praying how to share.  I said, “Then, I had an experience with God. Whom I hadn’t believed in up to that point, which changed my life. I could look AWAY from the fearsome pits and at the things in front of me NOW and suddenly see the beauty in birds and flowers again.”

As I spoke it came to me, how to begin to share with her.  “Ahuva, it is so much bigger than us. We are just for a moment, only God is forever and He really knows.  Talk to Him.  He is the source of our lives. Turn your face toward Him and ask Him to show Himself to you…”

I couldn’t believe that I was saying such things at work to this woman, but she was being truly comforted, so it MUST have been HIS Words and NOT mine.

Please pray for her and for an opportunity to share HIS Name with her OR THAT HE WILL HIMSELF.

Then there is Danbi.  She is exactly 6 weeks older than I am and the picture of health until she got a stomachache and was diagnosed with an incurable fast moving cancer this past week.  Talk about a shock!  I called her to see how she was doing and she said, “Please pray for me.”

She does not know that I am a disciple.  “Of course,” I said, and I have been.

There are many others.

But there was yet another- a different kind of interesting encounter when I went for my weekly lab test as I still have not yet been healed from my blood disorder.  I am friendly with the lab technicians.  Most are either religious Jews (dati) or Arabs.  I get a hug from each of them.

Last week I saw Rivka.  We got to talking about being thankful.  I enjoy her.  She has a big heart for God and seems to truly trust and love Him.  I do not know yet how to share His Name, but we speak much.  “I have a tool for praising Him while I’m on the bus,” she said.  She held up her hand with her fingers spread.  “One, two, three, four, five.  I take five words.”

“How do you do this?” I asked.

‘Well,” she said holding up finger number one, “this is my independence.  I was very sick and could do nothing for myself when I was a child, but God healed me and now I can walk and take care of myself and my family. I am not dependent upon others for my daily life, and I am so thankful, so I thank Him for all of the things I can do.”

I had never thought of that before.  “What is the next?” I asked.

“Two is for my body and the wonder that it is.  I thank Him for my eyes, I can see, hear, speak, move, and that it knows how to heal itself…it is wonderful!”  She went on, “Three is my family.  I am so thankful for my family and I thank Him (ha Shem…which means “The Name”) for each of them and bless them. Four is for provision.  I have a roof over my head, enough to eat, a job, all of these blessings are from “ha Shem. And FINALLY Five is Faith.  That too is a gift from ha Shem and I am so thankful for the gift of faith as so many do not have this. It is the most important.”

I could only agree with her and we hugged and smiled broadly at one another.  I thanked her and wrote her 5 points down.  What a wonderful way to keep a tender heart while on the bus and train.

Perhaps titling this letter as a “street walker” in the midst isn’t quite appropriate, but as I walk these streets, the streets of earthly Jerusalem praying, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, even in the earthly Jerusalem as in the heavenly,” I truly think of you and try to record what to stash in my memory so that I might share it.  You help me to look for His perspective as I sometimes feel a little like a beaten up Ping-Pong ball.

I told you awhile back how He had exercised me in reading the major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel along with Revelation), straight through over and over again for about a year. THANKFULLY I was also reading through New Covenant and Psalms at the same time or I surely would have lost my balance.  However now, looking at world events, I find I am almost not concerned. HE REALLY DOES HAVE IT ALL UNDER CONTROL!

I feel that even though, yes, we are important to Him, our little lives are so small in the hugeness of His plans and purposes.  Oh, I pray into the events, and roles of countries and leaders, but I remember clearly the words of Campbell McAlpine, a wonderful man of God, who said “Never be moved by circumstances.  Only be moved by God!”

How incredibly important that is as we watch it all sigh and heave and tremble, to keep our eyes fixed on Him.   I think how Elijah sent his servant to search the sky while he himself put his head between his knees, toward the ground, and prayed for rain. Finally a small cloud the size of a man’s fist appeared, but he didn’t have to look at it. He was looking at The One Who sent it.

May we be found of Him at PEACE, which is so elusive to the world and so longed for by men. It comes freely through the Precious Blood and we have the great privilege of being  “contagious carriers” of that Peace, reflecting it, in a lost and dying world.  Lord, shine on us so that we would reflect YOU Alone.

The Lord bless you and keep you and encourage you (and me) closer to Him.

Lovingly,

Your sister J