I do not know where to begin...I do not know what to say...so I will start with I am tired.  I am not tired because I stayed up too late playing dominoes...even though I did.  I am not tired because my sleep was interrupted with intrusive dreams...even though they were.  I am not tired because my body is sore and I could not find a comfortable position to lay in all night...even though I could not.

I am tired because I have spent the night weeping and praying.  I am tired because my heart is aching and I am not quite certain what to do with the heartache.  My heart is aching for Moatza Ezorit Sdot Negev, Netivot, Ashdod, Beer Sheva, Moatza Ezorit Merhavim, Hatzerim and many more.  Do not worry, as I had never heard of any of these places until around 1:00 pm yesterday afternoon myself.  You see, these are all places in Israel who have been bombed since that time yesterday.  Allow me to explain how I have this information.

Yesterday July 29, 2014 at 1:00 pm, I decided to make myself more aware of what was going on in Israel by downloading "Red Alert" onto my IPhone.  "Red Alert" blares a siren each time Hamas launches a missile into Israel and those cities I mentioned above are their targets.  Since I downloaded that app, Hamas has launched 36 missiles into those cities.  At first I was becoming more aware, then the Holy Spirit grabbed my heart and asked me to start praying each time the siren blared on my phone and now on July 30th at 7:00 am and 36 missiles later, I AM WORN.

Just since midnight, there have been 16 missiles launched!  Each time the siren would blare, I began praying for the Peace of Israel.  However that prayer, "Lord, I pray for the Peace of Israel" became more and more real to me.  Suddenly I realized that I was not only praying for peace for a nation, albeit the most beloved nation in God's eyes; but, I was praying for peace of a People...God's CHOSEN..."O seed of Israel His servant, You children of Jacob, His chosen ones!"   I Chronicles 16:13  People God has set His heart on and has called out....the apple of His eye!  There are so many people in each of these cities who have not come to know Jesus their Messiah!  Oh, how blessed I have felt in the past 18 hours that I know their Messiah and that He has grafted me into the Vine.

I also began to feel the panic that I am certain they have felt each time that siren blared for them!  Panic that, if they have felt safe to leave their shelters, they have had to run to them again and again for safety.  Panic for the elderly who are unable, for many reasons, to make it into their shelters.  Grief for those who may have been injured or killed in attempts to get to their shelters.  I have also felt overwhelmed by the magnitude of their panic and heartache.

I am not going to turn the app off on my IPhone...how could I now?  I am going to continue to pray for the Peace of Israel...Peace of a People...Salvation for a CHOSEN one.  Since I began writing this blog at 7:00 am and it is now 8:00 am, 3 more missiles have been launched...one in Moatza Ezorit Eshkol, one in Moatza Ezorit Shaar Hanegeve and one in Ashkelon...and three more in my heart.  I pray God will continue to penetrate my heart with those missiles.  Shalom

Sacrifices of Joy

I Offer You Sacrifices of Joy

By:  Tameasa Shook Provencher

Psalm 27:6, 13&14

“…Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle.”  This really made me ponder many things that I had not thought to ponder in the past.  My favorite verse in the Bible has always been Psalm 27:13 and 14, “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!”  However, I've always breezed right past verse 6 and offering “sacrifices of joy.”

How does one offer sacrifices of joy amidst heartache, grief, loneliness, illnesses and depression?  How can you be joyful when everything you've always known is collapsing around you and you feel helpless to do anything about it and prayer, at times, seems so futile?  How do you tell a young girl, who has aborted her baby, that there is HOPE and in the midst of her sin, and, yes, even her grief, there is forgiveness at the foot of the cross…only there can her shame and guilt be left and she can then, too, offer the sacrifices of joy?

Sacrifice is difficult…it is painfully difficult most of the time.  It is not for the faint of heart or the casual Christian because it requires surrender:  Surrender to one-self, control and surprisingly wallowing in the pains that keep us from the sacrifice.  Yes, wallowing…..sometimes we (I) am more comfortable with the difficulties that keep me from surrender and submission than we joy of our healing…difficulties that keep us from falling prostrate before God and crying out for forgiveness.  I find myself swimming in the “pool of wallowing …” OR not submersing in the Pool of Forgiveness…like the man in John 5 who, for 38 years, lived in his infirmity and never stepped into the Pool of Bethesda.  Then Jesus “comes” into his life and heals him.  He did not linger either…he did as Jesus said and picked up his bed and went home!  What an example of how we are to respond when Jesus moves in our lives!

However, sometimes we aren't completely healed like this man are we?  Sometimes Jesus moves and our infirmity, as it were, is left intact…like Paul’s “thorn in the flesh.”  Jesus then begins to teach us how to persevere in them because HE needs to work through them.  He wants to use them for His glory.  So that we may, as it says in 2 Corinthians 2:4, “That we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves ARE comforted by God.”    Paul doesn't say, “have been” comforted; but, “ARE!”  That is a hard lump to swallow for me.  Oh, the times I have cried out, “Why don’t you just remove my depression or my diabetes or my paralyzed stomach, God?  Lord, it would be much easier for ME to serve YOU, if these things were removed.  Don’t you want me to be free and in complete service?  Lord, why are you holding me back?”

However, this morning, when He began teaching me about the “sacrifices of joy,” I realized that experiencing joy and expressing joy when we don’t feel like it, is very difficult.  It is easy to offer up praise when there has been an answer to prayer or a miracle in our lives; but, what about when you have been admitted to the hospital for the eleventh time in a year?  How do you express joy and serve Him joyfully when you have lost your spouse, parent or child?  What is easy about expressing or experiencing joy when you have been diagnosed with an inoperable, untreatable cancer and your days on earth are numbered?  Does being joyful come easily when your home is in foreclosure and you do not know where you will find a home for your family?  How do you offer up the sacrifices of joy then?

In Psalm 27:1, David was facing his enemies; yet, he said, “Of whom shall I be afraid?”  David declared that he would only desire and seek to be “hidden in the secret of His tabernacle.”  He said that then he could offer the “sacrifices of joy.”

Offering sacrifices of joy is done without complaining and can only be offered through the perfect love of Jesus.  Once you have exchanged lordship over your own life and made Him Lord it will be made easier.  It will still be difficult, at times, but we have to CHOOSE to offer the sacrifices of JOY.  Then we can declare verses 14 and 13, with David …but only then.