To say that today was a wonderful expression of God's love over us doesn't begin to express the depth and width of the experience. Each day begins with our own group worship, devotion and prayer… and God got started on us early.
This morning was my turn to lead the devotion and God gave me Isaiah 40, "Comfort My People". And when I say "gave" (those of you who know me know this is not what I would call typical language for me) I mean, God has been revealing to us all day that it was indeed "given". In a nutshell, Isaiah shares what we commonly know as a Messianic prophecy, which would be used later by John the Baptist, saying "Prepare the way of the Lord." To the Jew this phrase would be a common idiom referring to a king sending representatives out on the road before him to "clear obstacles/clear the path for the king." Since they had no Jesus reference, they would later interpret it as king Cyrus of Persia delivering them from exile. However, on this side of the cross we now know what they did not. Sound familiar? This is exactly what is still going on today in Israel. We are here working to bring an understanding of Jesus to those who are still "living in that exile knowledge." We are preparing the way for the King as His representatives, making straight pathways. What put the affirming punctuation on it, though, is that all day the themes were centered around the exilic period with speakers and organizations referencing Comfort My People. Every time one would come up we would turn with our jaws dropped and just stare at each other. Unbelievable!! Thank you God for your amazing confirmations today.
Each of our sessions have been packed with speakers, musicians and talks from leading Messianic Pastors and Organization Leaders giving us sort of a "State of the Israel Union" for the rise of the Messianic church in Israel. Today alone we met with so many, from a woman who works "underground" doing humanitarian work with refugees to a young man, Daniel, a teacher who's ministry is to host groups for Shabbat, and is preparing to have us celebrate Shabbat on Friday night. I am particularly excited about tomorrow morning as we will have a two hour session in leading worship and prayer in the Prayer Tower. Sharon and I were able to go and have a 15 minute taste of what's to come.
One of the highlights for the group today was a guest musician named Benny Prasad. Wow!! I've never witnessed anything like him. To look at him you might think he's a hippie from India. Slight in build, long wavy hair, with a mouse-ish voice, but what a humble servant of God. His story speaks to the ways God can use anyone regardless of race, health, or ability. When we had walked in I immediately noticed the guitar on stage - it was so unique - custom built with two drum heads embedded into the front face, one at the top above the neck and the other at the lower bottom. Above the bridge was another set of strings attached above the sound hole leading to the bottom of the guitar that are used as a drone or harp. We were amazed as we heard him play this thing slapping and strumming at the strings and drums with such precision. But, as if that weren't enough, it turns out the real wow factor lay in his personal testimony of faithfulness. Following God's leading, in 2010 he received the world record for being the fastest man to travel to every country in the world - that's 257 countries total! Now that's a whirlwind tour of 6+ years unashamedly sharing the gospel and his music, and many of those places suffering persecution for the sake of the gospel. Inspiring to say the least…
We ended the day by walking down to the Old City of Jerusalem to see the incredible light show celebrating Israel's independence. There were literally hundreds of thousands of people out in and around the city. The lights were fantastic, and as a bonus my sweet Sharon found a cotton candy stand. I'll let you in on a little secret - for the entirety of our 26 years of marriage I can say she still gets a little "school-girl" giddy over cotton candy.
I feel like today was reminiscent of the apostles telling us that Jesus did so many amazing things that there's no possible way to write it all down. God is truly good. We have been deeply blessed to connect and endear ourselves to what He is doing in the land.
Be Blessed!
Glenn
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