Prayer for Wisdom

Hello to all!

This is not a normal update, I will send one later in the week.  I am sending this email out because I need some wisdom! I am presently at the end of my finances and am already late on my car payment for this month.  So I need to know from God if He's saying 

• A. It's time to just come home a get a job, 
• B. Lose it all and start over when you get back  
• C. Wait just a little longer.

I am a patient person and don't mind waiting, but banks don't always see things the same way.  


So I am asking you to pray with me and for me to have wisdom to know what I am supposed to be doing right now.  I don't really feel I am supposed to be going home just yet, but I can't stay without money. I still need at least $800 dollars within the next few days to pay for 9 months of health insurance in Israel, my car payment and car insurance back home etc. I'm not stressed, I am at peace, I just need to make a decision asap as to what I'm doing. Thank you so much for standing with me on this!

Blessings to you all!

The One Who Heals the Blind

Shalom from Jerusalem!

All is going well on this side of the world; I pray things are going well for each of you.  We are in the 10 Days of Awe and this Shabbat is also Yom Kippur (by the time I get internet to send this we might be past Yom Kippur!).  The Jewish people have been spending this time searching their hearts in preparation for observance of Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).  Even though they do not have a high priest to go into the Holy of Holies to sacrifice on their behalf, they still spend the day in fasting and repenting. The orthodox Jews have decided that if they recite certain scriptures and then kill a chicken that this somehow atones for their sins. One day, they will know the One who sacrificed Himself as a fulfillment of the Day of Atonement!  On a lighter note, the kids are getting excited about Yom Kippur because that means they get to ride their bikes in the middle of the streets (as there will be no cars), which is a highlight of their year.  The joys of being children!

I want to go back to a scripture I referenced a few weeks ago.  In John 9:29-33 the man who was born blind states to the Jewish leaders of his day, that Yeshua (Jesus) must be from God BECAUSE He opened the eyes of one BORN blind.  They had never heard of one being healed who was BORN blind.  That was the sign to this man that Yeshua could have come from no one but God.  Someone told me a story of how a man was witnessing in a hospital and a Jewish woman came up to Him and said, “He is not dead anymore? How can you prove this to me?”  So the man told her to go into the chapel, and ask God to show her how this was possible.  Ten minutes later she came out with tears streaming down her face and said, “I know it’s true, I’ve just seen Him.”  This is a present day example of God opening the eyes of one who was BORN blind.  Only God can do this!  We are in a new season and in this season we will be seeing the eyes of those BORN blind opened.  They will shout, both Muslim and Jew, and say, “we know it’s true because we were born blind and now we see!”   

In this season it will not be our words that will cause these precious ones to run to the one who can open their eyes.  For those who walk in fear and anger and bitterness and rejection it is only the LOVE of God in us that can reach their hearts.  The time has come for us to shut our mouths and show them our hearts.  The world has heard it all, but they’ve not SEEN it all.  It goes back to the nameless, faceless tribe.  We don’t need to be out there shouting things at people, we need to be quiet, get out of the way, and let Him permeate the earth through our actions.  We have nothing to give, but if we get rid of ourselves then through us He can give everything.  

I have found that the more time I spend worshiping at His feet, the more I can see that in myself I am nothing.  True worship lifts our focus from ourselves to Him.  Worship is also the key to bringing down the manifest presence of God.  Yes, God is everywhere and in everything (omnipresent), but that type of presence is not the same as the presence of God when He descends in all His glory.  Our worship opens the heavens, changes the atmosphere and calls for His manifest presence to come down among us.  When His manifest presence descends, His throne descends.  And when His throne descends His government descends.   A king governing from his throne does not behave in the same manner as a child in a manger.  We are going to begin to see His governing in this earth.  It will be fearsome to behold.  In Genesis one He SPOKE and this earth was created.  As King He will begin to speak again and when He does the earth will shake under the weight of His words.

Haggai 2:21-22 “Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying: ‘I will shake the heaven and earth. I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms; I will destroy the strength of the Gentile kingdoms. I will overthrow the chariots and those who ride in them; the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother.’”

Hebrews 12:25-26 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks.  For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth: but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.”

 Joel 3:16 The Lord also will roar from Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem; the heavens and earth will shake; but the Lord will be a shelter for His people, and the strength of the children of Israel.

Joel 3 reminds us that those who KNOW Him, and who hear His voice do not need to fear His voice.  He consumes His enemies, but protects those He loves (which doesn’t mean you won’t endure difficult times, but we do not need to fear).  We need to have our eyes wide open to see what He is doing and be able to get in line with Him in an instant.  The closer we get to His return the faster He will be moving. We won’t have time to sit around and analyze what He is doing and discuss it for days and weeks on end.  If we are watching and waiting we will have just enough time to get in line with what He is doing. These are exciting days we are living in! These are days that the men who penned the scriptures would have loved to see in person.  So be alert, watching and waiting, ready to move at a moment’s notice. 

Praise report:

1.       My arm is feeling significantly better this week! There is still some soreness, but I was able to play a full two hour set!

2.       God is continually reminding me that He is the one who cares for my needs.  People have randomly given me money here in Israel over the last month, which, though it can’t be used to pay bills back home, has been a great blessing in covering my food and transportation costs here!

Prayer requests:

1.       Completion of the healing of my elbow

2.       Bethany (woman I live with), is in the last 3 weeks of her pregnancy.  We live nearly an hour from the hospital and her last delivery took a total of 1 ½ hrs! So please pray that everything will line up and she will be able to get to the hospital in time (I will nanny, but I don’t want to deliver babies!!!!), and that her delivery will be without any complications. 

3.       Please join us in crying out for those who have been born blind so that we could see (Romans 9-11). 

~Lydia

Photos:

1. I found a beach party in the middle of Jerusalem's streets

2. Bethany and I

3. A baby boy being dedicated etc. at the Western Wall

4. Keira "skating" in the sand

Shana Tova (Happy New Year)!

Jerusalem is very quiet today.  Yesterday afternoon everything shut down for Rosh Hashana (Head of the Year), and all the stores and buses will stay that way until Saturday evening! Now that is something that you DO NOT experience in the States.  Can you imagine all the stores being closed for 3 1/2 days?  Next week we will be observing Yom Kippur, which means everything will be closed again for a few days, and not even people with cars get out and drive much during that time. Then about a week after that we will have Succot (Feast of Tabernacles) and several more days of closed stores. I absolutely love it. There's nothing like being forced to stay in and rest! 

Last night I was invited to a friends house for a Rosh Hashana dinner and celebration.  During this time people eat lots of apples dipped in honey and dates to represent the sweetness of the new year.  Apple cake is a great way to do that too! Anyway, at the end of the meal we took time to blow the shofar, read portions of the Torah readings (story of Abraham putting Isaac on the altar, as well as Hannah's song in I Sam 2) both of which had to do with shofars, or horns.  When you blow the shofar during Rosh Hashana you are to begin with a long blast, then three shorter mournful blasts, then a number of staccato or very short blasts and finally end with another long blast.  The first represents purity and wholeness, the second group represents the sin that is in each of us, the third section speaks of how God takes us apart to remove the sin - often we are put into a fragmented state, then the last represents how He then puts us back together in purity and wholeness (this is what I've been told, might not be what everyone would say). Listening to people blow their shofars at the Wall today I was reminded of how Yeshua was pure and whole, He then took on the sins of the world, was torn and beaten for us, and then rose from the dead to offer us the opportunity to be pure and whole with Him.  We are now entering the 10 Days of Awe leading up to Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) during which time Jewish people search their hearts for sins they need to repent of.  As a symbol of their sins being atoned for, they also wear mostly white instead of their typical black.

As a Westerner it is very odd to celebrate the New Year in the middle of the year. Even though the Hebrew calendar states that we are beginning the 7th month, this was commanded by God to be observed as the beginning of the year.  I find it interesting that God chose the time of Harvest to be the start of the year. He wants us to begin by harvesting!! When God placed Adam in the Garden it was already a fruitful place, He didn't say I'm putting you here, now make a fruitful garden.  So with us God begins the year with abundance, food that is ready to be eaten! He has prepared a table before us, it is already there, waiting for us to partake of His goodness.  We are also having faith that we will see an abundant harvest of souls!  Recently a woman here had an encounter with God in which He asked her how many Muslim souls she wanted. She began to small and so He kept telling her to ask for more. Finally she said she wanted 1,000,000 Muslim souls to be saved.  The other day some friends of mine were visiting a former Muslim woman and she said that's what they have been praying for, 1,000,000 Muslims to be saved. They are also God's precious jewels, sons of Abraham and He loves them tremendously! The Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain came down in an instant, it was a suddenly.  God can do the same with this deception. 

During Ramadan (which is just now ending) a strange thing happened.  On the Temple Mount one of the huge brass doors of the Dome of the Rock was left open and women were sitting in it praying. It was like this for days. If non-Muslim women went to the open door they did not tell them to leave.  Now, these doors are NEVER left open, and if you try to get a glimpse inside when a worker goes in or out they will holler at you and tell you to get away.  But all week long it was this way, however, they would not let any non-Muslim men near the door.  After praying into this, the group has felt that God is saying He is opening a new door, and it will be through the women.  Muslim women are under tremendous oppression, and we feel that is part of why they will be the ones who begin this new wave of turning to the One True God!  They are so ready to hear some good news, and they will be open and receptive to non-Muslim women who approach them.  So we have been proclaiming that the doors are no longer shut!!!  Also, due to Ramadan, the Temple Mount was supposed to be closed off to visitors today, but when we showed up this morning they were allowing groups to go up!  We really feel that this is going to be a year of God opening doors that no man could open and that no man can shut once He has opened them.  

Several leaders here have said they really feel that this will be the beginning of God taking His servants and speaking through them to the Kings and leaders of the nations.  However, it will not be for the purpose of pride and personal gain.  He will use the nobodies. He has called for a nameless, faceless tribe who seeks not their own glory but delights only in doing the will of their Beloved, the King of Kings.  It is people with this type of heart that He will suddenly thrust into places of great influence, but only for a moment. They will go, speak what God tells them to speak and then they will return to being part of that nameless, faceless tribe.  In II Kings 9 Elisha sends the son of a prophet to speak to Jehu and anoint him King over Israel.  Elisha's instructions to this young man were go in, speak the words, anoint him and then run out of there as fast as you can.  Why? It was not to be about this young man, or any man.  He was sent in to do a task of great importance, but he was to gain nothing himself from doing it. This is how we are to operate!  Instead so often God gives us a task, we do it, and then we proclaim to the whole world the great thing we have just done. That is not God's heart!!! 

This nameless, faceless people will be able to function in tremendous unity since they won't be seeking their own gain, but the gain of Him they serve. If you read II Chronicles 5, when Solomon is dedicating the Temple the Glory of the Lord only fills the Temple when all the musicians and singers make a sound as ONE.  The unity of believers, functioning as ONE body is what will bring the glory of God in the last days.  During these 10 Days of Awe, maybe we should be searching our hearts for those things that keep us from being in unity with the rest of the Body of Yeshua. God make me a nameless, faceless follower of You, should be our cry. 

Praise Report!
I was able to play the piano for an hour straight on Thursday without any noticeable increase in pain or tension in my elbow! 
Prayer Requests:
1. Completion of the healing in my elbow
2. Continued increase in my ability to hear what He's saying to me
3. Grace for this stretching of my faith!


Blessings to you all!
~Lydia



Pictures:
1. Holding my friend's 4th baby (she was one of my room mates back in 2002).
2. Kody being Kody! He just turned 2 this week.

3. Running into a friend from the States

Ripening in the Heat

Hello everyone!!!

This update is probably going to be a bit different. I have several things I want to share about what is going on here as well as things He is showing me or the group during times of prayer. Hopefully I can connect them in some way, so just bear with me! Life is full over here, and you don't always have experiences in just one vein at a time.

In the Hebrew culture each number is given a letter as well.  Thus each year has a specific meaning that is derived by the letters represented by the numbers of the year.  The Hebrew year ends on the final day of the month of Elul (next Wednesday).  This particular year, 5770, is represented partially by the letter Ayin. This particular letter is connected with the word eye.  So it has been focused on seeing, sight, what God sees, what we can and can't see, clarity of sight, and God seeing the wickedness of this world.  As we are approaching the end of this year, we have really been praying into our own sight. One chapter we have spent a good bit of time looking into is John 9 - the story of the blind man who washed in the pool of Siloam. I highly suggest reading the whole chapter when you have a chance. Not only was he given sight but he boldly proclaimed the truth that he knew (verses 11, 25, 27, 30-33, and 41 are the main verses we looked into). We have been praying that there would be an increase in boldness, as this man had, within the believing community in Israel. In verse 20-23 his parents responded to the questioning by saying don't ask us, we don't want to be lumped in with him, ask him what happened and leave us out of it!  This still happens with believers today.  But this man didn't care, he boldly proclaimed the truth regardless of who agreed or disagreed with him.  Recently there was a large article in the local paper on Messianic Believers here in Israel and how they are still Jews. The majority of the article was very positive, which is a first for over here! So be praying that it will open the doors for believers to reach out!

Last week we spent some time on the Temple Mount and went to the 4 corners speaking forth His call to the people of Israel, His love for them and also that His light would shine on them and reveal His Son.  Anyway, I walked past the Eastern Gate and stopped to just look at it, imagining how one day Yeshua will come through the gate. I was also finding the fact that the Muslims have sealed it up and done so many things in an attempt to keep Him from coming through rather amusing, since I know He will just burst right through anything they set up!  But then a different perspective hit me.  I don't think He's the least bit upset that they have gone to such great lengths to keep Him out. Why? Because in the process of keeping Him out they have also made it completely impossible for anyone else to go through the gate either.  So He has used them to in a way, completely save the gate for Himself! When I saw that I could also sense that to Him, saving that gate for His sole use was very special, almost similar to how a bride is to be saved for her husband.  It just made me re-focus my sight/thinking and remind myself that what I "see" in the physical is generally not what He sees.  Afterward we met back together to finish up the set.  While we were just standing there waiting for the rest of the group Una's phone just started playing the shofar recording all on it's own and she was having a hard time getting it to stop. After a bit, she got it under control, and we were just standing there musing about how great God is when he phone began to play How great is Our God! We were just laughing at this point as she dug through her purse again to make it stop.  Then about a minute later it went off one last time and was playing a song I didn't know but the words were all about God drawing us and yearning for us - which is what our prayer session and the month of Elul were all about. We had quite a good laugh at the ways God will speak to us, if He used a donkey why not a cell phone?

Last week was a very hot week. We had a few days that broke heat records! But I learned something valuable through the lovely heat wave.  Heat ripens dates. Because of the unusually high temperatures the dates actually ripened an entire month early. So what?!? God uses the heat in our lives to mature and ripen us as well.  It is through those difficult or trying experiences that our character is molded.  I also believe we have entered into a new season where, due to the way the Enemy is moving, new believers will be ripened much faster. They will have to be able to endure the heat from the very beginning.  This has actually been happening for years in China, Russia and numerous countries throughout Africa and the Middle East.  But those heat waves are now making their way to the West - Europe and the U.S. in particular.  So perhaps it's not a new season, just the completion of a season! I think it will be important for seasoned believers to be ready to respond correctly to new believers who seem to mature over night. We must guard against pride!

This week had a bit of turmoil added into it with the shooting on Tuesday evening.  In case it didn't make it into the Western media, some members of Hamas opened fire on a vehicle heading into the disputed area of Hebron. They killed all four adults in the car, one of which was 9 months pregnant.  On Thursday morning we found out that the woman was pregnant with her seventh child and that her husband (who was not well known in any way) was very involved around the Temple Mount.  He would go up every Wednesday morning, sometimes with groups, which might not seem strange to you, but many Jews refuse to step foot on the Temple Mount for fear they will accidentaly step on a holy place.  It is also difficult for them to move freely on the Temple Mount as they have to have an Israeli soldier follow them (for their safety) as well as a Muslim guard (to ensure they don't pray or break any of their rules).  He had also been devoting large amounts of time to put together an encyclopedia of the various instruments and customs connected with the Holy of Holies.  He had also told people that this year during Rosh Hashana (the new year, means literally - Head of the Year) he wasn't going to pray for his own needs, he was only going to pray for the rebuilding of the temple.  This week, he actually changed his schedule a bit and went up on the Temple Mount on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, and it was that night that he was shot.  The hood of his car had a large sticker on it with Hebrew letters that represent the words "God the King".  It doesn't seem like as random of an act after knowing all of these details. I doubt the people who did the actual shooting knew anything about the man, but I think the spirits controlling them did.  He was on a busy highway, not some back road, so they really could have taken out anyone, for some reason it was him.  There is a constant spiritual battle over the Temple Mount, whether we always see the physical signs of it.

On a bit of a different note...We spent some time on the Temple Mount and went to the 4 corners speaking forth His call to the people of Israel, His love for them and also 
Prayer Requests:
1. Continued healing of my elbow - it is improving daily, but I'm still not able to play long enough to do a set.
2. Protection as we near the end of Ramadan and their "night of power" (Sunday night). 
3. Clear direction for the new year and anything that needs to be finished in this year.
4. Increased faith for finances - I need about $1100 to cover my bills this month (which includes several insurance payments for here in Israel).
 
A while back some of you requested that I include a paypal option in my updates as that would be easier for you. My paypal account has been set up so if you would like that information I can email it to you.

Since I'm using a friends computer, I am not able to add any pictures to this update, so sad!! But I will be sure to add some next time!
I will be forwarding one or two interesting emails that have lots of educational pictures for you to look at in regards to Gaza and this shooting. 
 
Shabbat Shalom (sabbath peace)
Shana Tova (happy new year)
~Lydia