So, I've been thinking lately.
About the busyness of the next 31.25 days.
About the excitement of meeting each of you on the day after that.
About the work we'll be doing in Israel.
About the people we'll meet and the divine moments that we'll encounter.
About the victories and rejections that will spring from such interactions.
About the condition of our hearts, and the hearts of those who don't [yet] know Him.
About the last time I was in Israel, and how I tried so hard to "do everything I could do" to "pursuade" someone that this is the Truth they should walk in.
And in my thinking, I came across this verse. It's from Isaiah chapter 56:
And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to Him, to love the NAME of the LORD, and to be His servants, those I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer...for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.
The LORD God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, "I will gather yet others to Him besides those already gathered."
Tonight that verse serves as a fresh reminder of a very important truth in our lives: it is God who does the calling, the turning of hearts, the gathering. Our aim in Israel, and anywhere else, is not to "win souls." God's got that part covered, too. He only asks that we pursue His glory, that our whole lives would exist for that very purpose, for in doing so we will find those around us eternally affected.
Let's pray now for God to be preparing the hearts of the people we will encounter, so that when we follow God's call to Israel in an effort to radiate His glory there, souls would gravitate towards the Truth they see in us. Oh pray that in all our messiness and brokeness there would be a beauty that shines much greater than our humanity. Pray that they would see Him!
