Dear Friends,
During Passover, as I’ve been looking at the situation with Israel and Gaza and wondering why God protected us so wonderfully against the Iranians and not so much regarding the hostages, several things have occurred to me. They are not easy to consider.
The first, and I suppose the most important one, is that the Israeli government has not come clean … far from it … in its role in allowing, being implicit with, or perhaps even encouraging, the horrible events of October 7th. It is believed that the government wanted an excuse to go into Gaza and destroy its enemy’s ability to keep attacking them, and that they used this invasion, about which they knew, to go in and reconquer Gaza. They told soldiers to stand down and ignore what they were seeing, and warned at least one that if he reported what he witnessed he would be tried on charges in military court. It is also assumed, from foreign sources that arrived to help locate and release the hostages and were stopped from completing their tasks, that Israel did not want the hostages released, perhaps because the hostages gave the Israeli government an excuse to fulfill their military objectives.
But now, without regaining all the hostages, and without completing the work they set out to do, the Israeli government has offered to sign a deal that would put Israel in jeopardy once more. My dream about it last night showed Israelis willingly getting into caskets and then being buried alive. It was a horrible dream, for many reasons, but the saddest part was that Israel was complicit in its own demise.
It is almost impossible to understand how much God supports Israel in spite of its immersion in global political agendas that want to destroy it, and how many victories we have been given, on all fronts, when many of our ways are based on human conniving and have nothing to do with worshiping and trusting God.
So the question screams itself loudly. Why do we have so much distrust of God and want to rely upon our own understanding, even when it kills us?
The spirit of rejection and abandonment, and the spirit of rebellion stemming from them, run wild in Israel. We have blamed God, throughout the ages, for being absent, and have turned to other gods, preferring their attention, even if it hurts us, to God’s seeming absence. We see that in the episode of the Golden Calf.
Personally, I have struggled with this. For instance, it has seemed incredible to me, since God loves us so much, that He would leave us in bondage in Egypt for 400 years so that the sin of the Amorites could become fully ripe, and then, when their sin was sufficiently wicked for Him to be ready to destroy them, use us to annihilate them.
How could He allow us to be murdered, like the little baby boys who were slaughtered in the Nile River, so that He could defeat His enemy through us? What parent uses their children, especially when they are young, to defeat their enemies?
Concurrently, I have thought about how the Holocaust paved the way for the creation of Israel, but cost the lives of one third of our people. How could a good father allow the destruction of millions of his children to bless them with a good home? It’s the story of Job. The story of Yeshua. Following a God who uses His own children to defeat His enemy is costly. And it creates the kind of sentiment Job expressed in Chapter 3 when he asks God to kill him and wishes he had never been born. I have felt abandoned, in the past, thinking about it. Such is often the sentiment of Israelis.
But during Pesach, the Lord showed me how he built us from 70 people to several million during our time in Egypt and I realized we were not abandoned at all. Rather, God nurtured us and built us up into an army of people who were strong enough to return to Canaan and take the land. And He used us to protect Egypt and the Middle East during the famine. I had been listening to spirits of rejection, abandonment and rebellion, and they had blinded me from seeing the truth, the truth that God took care of us and grew us up in Egypt. So I repented and thanked God for His blessings over all of Israel. Much greater trust emerged in my heart, mind and soul for God and His process with us. If and when the time is right, God will reveal His Hand within other stories of our people. But for now, abandonment has been replaced with belonging, rejection has been replaced with inclusion, and rebellion has been replaced with the desire to serve Him even more faithfully. Amen.
My reason for sharing these thoughts with you is to support you in prayer for us, to develop compassion and understanding for how and why we have behaved the way we have, and to create a reservoir of hope and emotional, mental and spiritual prosperity to help us heal and become whole in Messiah Yeshua.
In that light, another spirit that trots along, following the spirit of abandonment, is self-defense, the need to prove oneself to oneself, primarily, but also to prove oneself to others, a felt need to vindicate oneself. And so, Israel has built up her sense of self-worth by touting her blessings, the opposite of what is needed for others to appreciate her. This has been self-defeating in many ways because the more a person or a people is blessed and gifted, the more humility is required for others to receive those blessings with gratitude. Humility stops the enemy in his tracks and causes God’s Kingdom to expand exponentially.
We, as a people, have felt abandoned for so long we have forgotten the humility that comes from knowing we are God’s loved children. Even when He protects us radically, like with Iran, it does not erase from our hearts, minds, souls and spirits the woundings we carry. Please pray that our blindness in this area will be removed, and that we will see Him and His relationship with us rightly, and know how dearly loved and cherished we are. Then, we will have the ability to be humble and continue in His grace.
I loved Heidi Baker’s recent teaching on humility. I highly recommend watching this session. Heidi has learned the lesson of humility like few others.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnTp3NJecI0&t=2305s
In conclusion, please pray with me that we will have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to feel God’s love for us. Please pray that we will recognize what God has done for us and through us and appreciate Him for using us to defeat evil. Please pray that we will appreciate the trust God has placed in us to serve alongside Him to bring forth His goodness. Please pray that we will even be blessed to be the sacrifice, when that is required, and also blessed to receive the bounty, when that is given. Paul said, in Phil 4:11-13, that he was blessed both when he abounded and when he lacked. Please pray that we will see our relationship with God in that light.
Dear LORD, thank You for showing us how much you have loved us and cared for us and nurtured us. Thank You for showing us why you have held Your Hand in Gaza. And where we have served another, dear LORD, cause us to return to You, to support You and bless You and love You. Help us to change our attitude, as a nation, as a people, from those who are always seeking Your Hand to those who are seeking Your Heart. How can we love you most? best? highest? deepest? And LORD, PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW US TO SACRIFICE OURSELVES ON AN ALTAR TO SATAN DURING THESE COMING DAYS, BUT BRING BACK OUR HOSTAGES THROUGH YOUR OWN GLORIOUS NAME AND WAYS. IN YESHUA’S NAME I PRAY.
In all your ways, LORD GOD, Hallelujah and SO BE IT! Amen.
FREEDOM 
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