Simple Reminders

The sabbath before last was Yom Kippur - the day of atonement.

The entire country literally shuts down from sundown Friday to sunset Saturday. People fast, and pray, and some will sacrifice chickens as an atonement for their sins. But even in the Old testament when God ordained this holiday the atonement was only partial and painfully temporary. It pointed to something greater that has now come.

Sunset on Yom Kippur

As I sat watching the sunset on Yom Kippur, listening to the Shofar signal the end of the day I couldn't help feeling overwhelmed by the knowledge that final atonement has been made for me. Permanently. How wonderful that because of Messiah the solemnity of Yom Kippur finds its end in joy. I've been freed to sin no more!

I love this tangible reminder of the grace bestowed to me. 

On the heels of Yom Kippur comes the week long celebration of Sukkoth, or the feast of Booths. 

In the villages and cities all over Israel rickidy shanties and plastic tents went up. Palm branches were supplied for Roofs, and colorful streamers, Christmas lights, and paper lanterns were hung. 

This past week families have gathered in their Sukkahs regularly to eat, and talk, and cook.  This is done so that they will remember that they once lived in temporary tents as sojourners and nomads in the wilderness, but the Lord was faithful to bring them into a good land, The Promised Land. 

Dinner in the IBEX Sukkah l Photo Credit: Caleb Donato 

This morning in keeping with Sukkot tradition the ladies of IBEX gathered in the Sukkah IBEX students built in our park for a Praise Fest. As we sang and read Psalms of praise I was reminded of Heaven. God's people are still sojourners. Having been grafted into the family of God I am just passing through this earth - which is just a rickidy, broken tent in comparison to what is to come. 

I love this visible reminder that this is a temporary state.

The past month or so has been very stretching for me. Moving to a new country. Learning a new job. Trying to figure out how to live intentionally in a new setting. Realizing that I am all too finite and have no hope of managing on my own. Learning to draw my strength from the infinite. 

This last week has ushered in it's own new set of challenges for my new-found IBEX family.

There have been days since I've moved here when I can barely wrap my mind around all that's going on. There are days of exhaustion. There are days when I don't know what to pray. There are days of saddness days of confusion. 

In Israel we pray for rain as much as anything else - it is just as tangible a demonstration of God's faithfulness as any holiday. In the summer months Israel becomes something of a dry and weary land, but this week God brought the early rains. In the midst of my own weariness and concern, Abba reassured my soul that He is still good. Because I am His, even the days of trail can be days of hope.   

I love this comforting reminder that my God is ever faithful, and strong. 

I'm so thankful to the One who wove these simple reminders into culture that I now find myself surrounded by. He must know how much I need them. 

Unchanged

Last week I moved to Israel.

My mailing address says 'in the hills of Judea' where most countries would write a city name.

Before I moved here I had this fantastic daydream of what this place would be like. After all, this is The Promised Land - The land to which God called Abraham to make for Himself a nation of priests. The country through which Holy God became accessible to sinful man. The place where Jesus sojourned for 33 years in order to make a way for the redemption of all man kind. I supposed I thought that meant God be closer here than other places.

But this is just a place.

A couple days ago I drove past the town where the Ark of the Covenant sat for a few decades on my way to the mall to buy plug adapters and toothpaste. Yesterday I went to Jerusalem to get health insurance and ink cartridges. In a couple days I will drive right past the valley where God made the sun stand still in Joshua 10 on my way to pick up students at the airport in Tel Aviv.

Life here is perfectly ordinary, and in these short 7 days God has not seemed extraordinarily closer. He as been much the same as ever. And while all this is rather the opposite of what I thought I'd be saying after a week in Israel, I find myself still more in awe of the Savior than I expected to be.

Before I knew I was coming here, I watched from a thousand miles away as some of my dearest friends experienced the Holy Land first hand. At the time I almost felt like God was somehow lesser in my life because I had never been to the land of my faith's foundation. I have never found so much comfort in the knowledge that I was wrong.

He's still the same. The God of Israel who met me in America has lived in me through life in Brasil, and Hungary, and India, and now Israel has never once changed! Though my understanding of Him is ever growing, no matter where I've roamed He's always been the same. I find such comfort in Him - my firm foundation - who does not change like shifting shadows. 

Thankful seems like a small word to express the joy I feel at the knowledge that I may call this unshakeable God of Israel Abba. I am beyond amazed to think that all of this was given to me because of a Man who died an unspeakable death on a cross and rose again just 10 miles away from where I sit.

I live in Israel. My mind still doesn't quite comprehend it. I can't call it luck, because I don't believe in that. I feel irrationally blessed to have been given this season of life to learn and grow in the land of my Savior. 

!הֹדוּ לַיהוָה כִּי־טוֹב  

I Forgot to Ask His Name

I saw him in the Miami Airport waiting for his flight to board a few chairs away from me. His hair was longer than mine, twisted into two dozen thick dreadlocks or so. Around his neck hung a chain with a heavy medallion that reminded me of the hindu idols that clutter the streets and shelves of India.

Our flight finally began to board. I couldn't help but pray that no one would sit next to me - it was my third flight that day, and my internal clock told me it was long past my bed time. I watched as he maneuvered down the plane aisle and stopped at my row. Heaving an internal sigh, I twisted in my aisle seat so he could get by, secretly hoping he would sit by the window so I had at least a semi valid excuse not to make conversation. He took the middle.

My conscious pricked me.

I tried to ignore it.

I glanced his way briefly as he fidgeted with the arm rest, trying to figure out how to make his seat recline. In his free hand he held a paper back with something about the 'wisdom of the Zen masters' in the title. Now I really didn't want to talk to this guy.

I didn't have a choice.

He turned to me and asked if I lived in California. After debating with myself for a moment I decided it would be easiest to say yes - I wasn't about to go into the complexities of fully answering that question. Besides, giving him a full explanation would necessitate sharing that I was a missionary's daughter, and I had a feeling that would rub him the wrong way.

Again my conscious pricked me. Or maybe I should call it the Holy Spirit's proding. My missions class from college flooded my mind, as it does almost every time I fly. "What better opportunity do you have the share the Gospel with someone than on a plane? Whether they like it or not the person sitting next to you is stuck there for the next 'X amount' of hours. Tell them about Jesus!"

It seemed God had a different plan for the final leg of my journey to California than I did.

Before I knew it I found myself in a deep discussion with this Jamaican man on a quest to become one with the earth. We talked for more than half the cross-country flight about the purpose of life, love, death, and peace. He talked in circles and I tried to follow his thought trains with little success. I talked about the Bible and the One it was written about, and he tried to convince me Jesus was just one representation of many 'gods' including Allah and all the spirit beings of the Native Americans. 

His 'lostness' hit me in the face.

The funny thing was, between bouts of twisted logic and misinterpreted experiences there was a lot of truth coming out of this mystic man's mouth. Things like the importance of loving one another. Things like forgiveness. Things like the sanctity of human life. He kept returning to this one thought - that the purpose of life was to become fully human. When I asked him what that meant, he said it meant to be perfect.

The purpose of life is to become fully human. In a sense, he was right. To be fully human is to be what God created us to be: perfect - sinless worshipers of the Almighty. Of course my neighbor was referring to becoming one with the earth and thus being elevated to the place of god, so that all was god and god was all. The depth of the deception that had trapped my dreadlocked friend's heart was close to bringing me to tears.

It occurred to me that the best lies are interwoven with truth. As the king of deception, Satan is the master of masking falsehood with fact, fiction with truth. Because we are made by God for God we are ingrained with a relentless thirst for His truth and, I believe,  endowed with a certain ability to recognize it. However our sin natures so recoil from the truth we so desperately crave that we choose to coat partial truths in lies, like a chocolate covered raisin, just to make it go down easier. Were it not for the truth in the lies I'm convinced no one would believe them, least of all the man sitting next to me - he was far from unintelligent.

Shame on me! How could I have been so reluctant to be the light God created me to be!? How could I have balked at an opportunity to share the Gospel and shine a ray of truth into the lie ridden state of this man's mind? Father forgive me. 

As the conversation wore on I became increasingly aware of my burning eyes and the fog that was gradually creeping over my exhausted mind. Our conversation lost its direction, began to repeat itself, and eventually ended. I tried find a comfortable sleeping position underneath my airline provided blanket, and he assumed a yoga/meditation pose. We landed in Los Angeles ahead of schedule and de-planed in short working order. I caught my last sight of him from across the baggage claim area. I doubt I'll ever see him again.

I've thought of that conversation often since then. I pray that some small seed was planted amid all the conversation.

My purpose in posting this is almost as much for my own processing purposes as it is to ask my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to pray. Not only for this man, but for the lost millions that are just like him - blind.

My heart is heavy for them; my heart is heavy for the dreadlocked man with the Zen master's book - and I don't even know his name.

For I [will not be] ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes... Romans 1:16

For this Season

Today I applied for a job. I'm not unemployed. But I applied for a new job, one that involves moving over seas and has the potential to alter the direction of my life  - at least temporarily. As I sent off my resume with a little prayer that God's will be done I felt something unfamiliar.

I'm willing to admit that I've always struggled with singleness. It always seems like everyone around me is dating or engaged. Shoot, I even have friends younger than me who are already married with kids (that's right kids=plural).

My parents were married just a few months after they both turned 21. While I have dated before I now find myself staring "23" in the face, and I'm single. It's easy to cave into thoughts like, "well I just must not be good enough, or there must be something wrong with me. Or maybe it's that I'm just not pretty enough. My personality must be too boring. I'm just not mature enough to attract the right kind of guy"....along with whatever else we single girls let float through our minds as we try to reason through our single state.

Lies. All of them. And we know it. Still, it's hard not to think those things.

But today as I scanned through my resume updating parts here and there I realized that if I were at any other place in my life right now I probably would never have even considered this job in the first place.

I was legitimately thankful to be single - and it shocked me.

I began to realize how unique this time really is.

I am single, and for now I'm glad to be (still feels weird to say that). I truly am beginning to see singleness as a gift. I don't think that I have it for life. I do hope to get married someday and have a family - there is a quarter in my heart that desires that very deeply. However for now God has given me the this incredible gift - of independence and unparalleled 'mobility' if you will - cleverly disguised as singleness.

I am responsible for me and only me. If I want to pick up and move across the world I can, and it won't devastate anyone I leave behind.  I am free to dedicate my energy and time to pursuits of my choosing without the need to differ to someone else's desires or calling.

Now I remember at almost every gender segregated chapel I ever went to a message was given on singleness. And without fail that message would at least touch on the idea that we were the most "free" we would ever be due to our single status. Most of the time I rolled my eyes, while thinking to myself, "Hogwash! I don't know a single girl who wouldn't give up this supposed 'freedom' you speak of in an instant if it meant she could have a relationship based on mutual love and understanding."

Now I find myself so excited about the possibilities of this unparalleled independence. It makes me a little bit giddy inside. I want to travel. I want to write a book. I want to randomly drop everything and move to the other side of the world in order to serve someone in need. I want to give all my money away to missions. I want to go away for days at a time to visit friends and family around the country. I want to spend hours on end learning more about my Savior and drawing closer to him by deepening my understanding of His word. I want to be able to be able to fit everything I own into my car, and be able to live in any kind of space.

And I have the freedom to do that! I really could do all those things! That just thrills me!

I know I may not always feel this way, but for now I'm so thankful for this little window of time in life, and for God's graciousness in helping me to understand at least a part of why this is the best place for me to be now. I hope that I can take all this opportunity and maximize it for His glory. There will be other seasons in life when glorifying God with my actions and deeds will look a little bit - or a lot a bit - different, and when that time comes I pray that I'll be just as excited about those opportunities as I am about these. But until then, I think I'll live for today - for this season :)