Watching and Waiting: Happy Hanukkah!

We have begun the 4th day of Hanukkah today; I love the festival of lights and oil. It’s a very special time to remember the miraculous things God has done for Israel. Hanukkah is not one of the feasts God commanded the Israelites to observe, it came into being much later as a remembrance of what happened during the Maccabean revolt.  Following Alexander the Great’s death in 323 BCE his kingdom was divided into 4 sections by his commanders. Antiochus IV became ruler of the Seleucid Empire (one of the 4 sections, in 175 BCE). He had no desire to see the Jews continue with any of their religious practices and therefore banned all sacrifices, circumcision, and feasts in an attempt to Hellenize them.  He went a bit further though, by sacrificing a large female pig on the altar in the Temple (as most of you know, the pig is considered to be unclean by the Jewish people) thus desecrating it.  During this time a family by the name of Maccabee had begun to revolt against both Antiochus IV and any Jews who had accepted this Hellenization process. They were very successful with their guerrilla warfare against the Seleucids and gained control of a good portion of Israel. When they reached Jerusalem and managed to take the Temple back they found it had been desecrated not only by the sacrifice of unclean animals but also by the placing of a statue of Zeus on the altar. They then took the current altar apart, brought in new stones to build one which had not been contaminated by the unholy. They also brought in a menorah (this portion of the story is not entirely known to be fact) and were able to find one sealed bottle of oil to use in it. The oil used in the menorah was to be made in a specific process which took about 8 days to complete. The oil in this bottle was only enough to keep the menorah lit for one day. The miracle is that they say this one day supply lasted for 8 days during which time they were able to prepare more oil in the correct manner.  During Hanukkah people use a Hanukkiah, which has eight branches and one center branch (the menorah has 6 branches with one center branch) to represent each of the days that the oil was multiplied for.  Each day of Hanukkah they light the candle in the center and then use it to light one candle for each day of the celebration (so on day three we light the center candle and then the first 3 candles, adding a candle each day till it is completely lit on the 8^th day).

On the subject of miracles, Israel could use a few right now (which seems to be their perpetual state over here).  First, which I would imagine has made it to the news, is that we are currently having the largest fire since Israel became a nation in 1948. The blaze is thought to be purposeful (arson) as it began simultaneously in 3 different locations.  Israel is low on the chemicals used to fight fires due to the fact that there have been a number of fires this year – some controlled and some uncontrolled. Thousands have been forced from their homes and it is believed that 40 are dead with a number of wounded and even more missing. The fire has been in the Carmel forest (Mount Carmel is where Elijah called down fire from heaven) and due to high winds and the fact that most of Israel is as dry as it can get the fire has spread rapidly and was moving towards Haifa. The fires are not anywhere near myself or Jerusalem. Planes have arrived from Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Turkey and a number of other countries, however, as of this morning, the fire had not been contained.  Spiritually I am praying that as this fire is burning so quickly because everything is dry, that God would burn out all of the dry “wood, hay and stubble” in Israel, that He would come in and cleanse this nation (Hanukkah is also about cleansing since that’s what they did when they reached the defiled Temple).

The second major need right now is for RAIN!!!!  There has been NO significant rain since last Spring and November was the driest November on record since they began keeping records in the 1920s. Since Israel is such a small country this lack of rain affects everything.  Right now you can’t find butter in the stores because the cows are not producing as much milk as normal. Olive oil is also going up in price because they weren’t as full of oil as normal.  Nothing has been as productive as usual this year.

In my last update I mentioned that some Rabbis had called a day of fasting and prayer to repent so that God would bring rain (lack of rain is one of the judgments God says He will send when His people don’t follow Him). Last year they did this and it was followed by a week of heavy rains. This year when I heard about it I was really interested to see if it would receive the same response. I felt like perhaps it was being done out of a view of “if we do this for a day we will get rain” when God wants to see them not profess to be repentant, but actually to be repentant. Only God can see the hearts and so I was very interested to see what would happen. So far we have had no rain and it’s been several weeks now since they prayed for rain. All throughout the Bible we are reminded that it is not about whether we simply look like we are doing what we should be doing, but rather if our HEART is where it should be. We can fast, pray and say we repent, but if we never actually change and show we have repented then God will judge us by our hearts and what fruit we are bearing rather than by our outward appearances. Israel needs to reach a place of repenting from the heart rather than in outward form. God asks that we rend our hearts, not our garments.

On a happy note though, a new law was passed about a week ago! Previously a prime-minister could give away land in peace negotiations without really getting permission from much of anyone. So they had passed a law requiring that there had to be a vote taken of Knesset members with a majority vote. But just in the last two weeks Netanyahu encouraged the passing of a law requiring a majority vote of the PEOPLE before land could be given away in peace negotiations. Now this doesn’t include all of the land currently controlled by Israel (it does not include Samaria for example, only what has been fully annexed into Israel), but this is a huge step towards protecting the land from those who would just give it away. Praise the Lord!

Over the last week God has been reminding me of a few verses from Psalm 2 (vs 7-8). It is time for us to stop just asking God to do things, change nations etc., but time for us to know what He is decreeing and decree it as well as ask that He give us the nations (heathen) to us for our inheritance. I really felt this week to begin asking for my inheritance and I want to encourage you to pray about this as well. Many blessings to all of you as you continue on the path that He has put you on!

~Lydia

Prayer Requests:

1. Pray for continued protection for Israel from attacks of all types – including any further fires.

2. Pray that people would turn to God as never before and leave all other gods far behind!!!

3. Please pray for wisdom for the family I live with. Their 2 year old has been having some strange issues. He has had two fits of screaming from intense pain to where he won’t open his eyes or answer anything you ask him. After these attacks he usually falls asleep for a few hours. The first time he woke up with a fever and spots all over his body which blistered and scabbed. The doctors don’t seem to know what is going on and each one guesses that it’s something different than the one before. Most of the time he runs around and behaves normally. If this is a spiritual attack pray that we will know where it is coming from and how to prevent further attacks, if it’s something else pray the doctors will suddenly figure it out.

4. Pray for continued strength and good health for me!

Photos:

1. Hanukkah lights!