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November 9, 2006 18 Cheshvan 5767 Dear Praying Friends,
As we continue to walk through the shakings and changes in the ministry and in our personal lives, the testimony of God’s grace is nothing short of overwhelming. In our last letter we shared with you something the Lord was doing in our midst. We’d like to relate a bit more of the impact this has had on us (in particular arni).
As soon as we knew that our son Jonathan’s time with Emmaus Way had come to an end, and that the Lord was taking the whole family to Australia for a season, though I was convinced that this was the will of the Lord, I went around and around within myself about how much I did not like it. As long as I traveled that road, my emotions were like a rollercoaster. Again and again the Lord encouraged me to get my eyes off myself and stop looking towards the future, thinking about how these changes would affect me personally. Oh, how I wrestled with my flesh. For weeks it was a day-to-day...hour-by-hour struggle. Yielding to the wrong side for a moment brought depression, distress, and a spirit of death.
In comparison to the trials of so many others, this that I was going through may not even be worthy to be called a hardship. But for where I was, and I am almost ashamed of my lack of fortitude, it was a rather severe trial. Let me say that it touched me in a place where I was leaning on and looking to other people for my fullness and stability. This was so much the case that I had to question my relationship with the Lord. As the time of their departure grew closer and my wrestling continued, I found increasingly that grace was waiting for me in morning. Before I opened my eyes I could feel it. Or perhaps it is easier understood by saying that there was no sense of heaviness, dread, or sadness. At that moment I had a choice. I could receive the grace and go on with present reality, or think about what was and lament what I perceived as a loss. At one point the Lord brought my attention to how much I preached about dwelling in eternity in the present, and said that I need to put my mind where my mouth was.
There is nothing unusual or revelational about what I just walked through. We all know about keeping our eyes on the Lord and setting our minds on the things above. For sure, many of you are well exercised in this discipline. Women that have gone through natural childbirth know what it means to fix your eyes on a point and breathe. But for myself, in 33 years of walking with the Lord, I have not had another moment where victory and defeat...in a sense, life or death...were so close together, being determined by such a small decision concerning how I chose to think about the situation.
So here is the testimony of the Lord. By the time our daughter-in-love and the grandkids left (last Monday night...Jon flies on the 27th), I was excited about what the Lord was doing with them even unto a sense of joy. How amazing! How much is this the hand of God! The blessing of the Lord makes us rich and He adds no sorrow to it.
We are sharing this with you because we believe that this experience exemplifies something God is doing throughout His Body. It is a demonstration of things we have been writing about concerning our preparation what is coming in the days ahead.
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Also in our last letter we spoke of how in Emmaus Way we have experienced seven years of relentless winds of challenge and opposition. I imagine the Lord became accustomed to hearing my lament: “I didn’t ask for this ministry. I would be much happier if I could just worship You and share Your Word with hungry people. I know Your yoke is easy, but I can’t seem to get out from under this burden.” As the recent changes were coming upon us, at one point I even wondered if God was going to close down the ministry and “set me free”. There has always been a tension between knowing God had called this work into being and my being weighed down by it.
One of the weighty aspects for me has been the kind of worship expression the Spirit has led us into. Each time we stand before Him with our instruments in hand it is the same. We have no plan, no program, no song list, no human leader to look to, and no idea what to say or what to sing or how we are going to pass the next two hours. We stand naked, empty, and totally dependant on the Lord. We are locked in the moment, drawing on nothing from the past, committed to repeating nothing we have done before except that God birth it anew. As much as I love it when the Spirit comes upon us, I have remained somewhat uncomfortable with our point of beginning.
Recently we took part in an extended worship time with a number of friends from other ministries. We began our time very much in the place of emptiness. Soon after the Spirit began to quicken us and our expression became strong and focused, some of our friends spontaneously joined us on the platform. This kind of flowing together is not new for us and we love it. Half way into the time given to us, one of the others was inspired to sing a song, which led to another and another and another. I and the rest of our team were glad that God was being worshiped, but I felt that something had gone off track. It was not the fact that our time to lead was taken. We understood, rather, that God had been deprived of the particular expression He’s called us to -- of having the blank and empty space to do something that had never been done before and would never be repeated again. We do not say that this is the pattern for all times of worship, but it is a forum precious to and greatly desired by the Lord. Had my friend not “taken over” as he did, I would not have seen in this deeper way how much God was blessed by our simple, faulty, weak, and comparatively meager offering. In it all, I also saw a place in me where I had a concern for what others might think of what we were doing. As a result of this experience, in the midst of our shakings, my passion and vision for the calling of Emmaus Way has been renewed and strengthened. It is from Him, for Him, and through Him...and He loves it.
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We can testify that every time we prepare a place for the Presence of the Lord, He comes. We don’t have to beg, we don’t really need to even ask. It is His desire. He created us that He might be with us. Our call as individual believers and as the ministry of Emmaus Way is to ourselves be a dwelling place for the Lord, to steward such a place of corporate expression, and to encourage and teach others to minister to Him in this way. Today we are functioning within the confines of the believing community. But one day, as a regular practice, we will take this “space” out into the world to gather the hungry souls who know there is more to life than what the world has to offer.
Beloved, your support for Emmaus Way provides for a space set apart for ministering to the Lord, equips and enables a team dedicated to bringing Him a unique and costly offering, and maintains a facility were others can come to get this vision and soak in His Presence. This is what we are presently doing. Given the limitations of our facilities, we can accommodate only between 12 – 16 people for an extended time. Groups of twenty-five and more have wanted to come and spend a day worshiping here, but we do not have a Tabernacle large enough for such a group. In the space in Tel Aviv, which was 210 square meters, we watched again and again how the Lord would so wonderfully meet groups traveling through the land and impart something of His heart to them that affected their whole trip. We would like to see that continue to happen.
There are many, particularly young people from Germany and the nations, that have written to us about spending a season worshiping and serving at Emmaus Way and reaching out from here to the community of broken people around us. How we would love to receive them. But in order to do this, we need more facilities. So we ask you to pray with us that we could do all that we can do for the glory of the Lord. The potential is before our eyes and, by faith, within our reach. The property we are on is available to us for purchase with the ability to build a Tabernacle suitable to the need. Adjacent to us there is a house for sale with four separate apartments able to comfortably house another twenty people. We believe that such an expansion of our facilities and activities would bring joy to the heart of God and be profitable in bringing Israelis to the knowledge of Yeshua. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or would like more specific details.
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We are right now in the middle of our second School of Worship with people from Germany, England, and New Zealand. It is a blessing and a privilege to have this opportunity to share living truth with hungry people. Though the material we are sharing is basically the same for each school, the character of the sessions is tailored by the Holy Spirit for the individuals He has brought together. We marvel at the Divine Hand of the Lord in choosing the participants. The messages can be downloaded from our website for free. Just go to the Audio Messages link on the menu. Our next school will be held from February 16th through March 1st. Please contact Terry at terry@emmausway.org for more information and applications.
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A Gay Pride Parade will take place through the streets of Jerusalem this Friday, unless the Lord intervenes. Believers all around the world have prayed that this would not take place. The orthodox community was joined by other sectors of the society in violent, vehement protests against this event. But in the end, as reported in Arutz-7 news service, "Despite the police recommendation to cancel the parade in Jerusalem for the sake of public safety, Attorney General Meni Mazuz preferred to respect the freedom of expression of the homosexual community, declaring that democracy is more important than public safety.”
This is Jerusalem. This is the city of the Great King. It is the only place on the face of the earth that God has chosen to put His Name. How can it be? How can God allow such a thing? Or perhaps we should ask, why would God allow such a thing? As we see it, the answer doesn’t need a lot of explanation. God is saying something. There are segments of the society that hold to Biblical values that decry such behavior. But they are not strong enough to alter the course. This is reminiscent of the interchange between Abraham and the Lord concerning the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. The iniquity is deep...far beneath the issues at hand. The abomination about to manifest in the streets is only the symptom of the disease. The strongholds of the forces of darkness are too entrenched and fortified to be broken down by anything less than the Presence and glory of the Lord. And let us not forget the unresolved plight of the families forcibly evacuated from their homes over a year ago. We are like a drunken man without the ability to chart a straight course. Please understand that our purpose is not to be critical, but rather that we would be awake and aware of the gravity and nature of our situation.
At the time of this writing, due to the heightened terror alert as a result of the latest activities in Gaza, the police have stated that they do not have enough manpower to also adequately cover the parade. Once again the parade may be postponed for secondary reasons.
The state of affairs militarily speaking is no better. The President of Iran shows no signs of departing from his plan to wipe Israel off the map. Our exercises in Gaza continue to claim civilian lives, serving only to strengthen the resolve of Hamas to resist and fight back. A new company of women has emerged, vowing to strap bombs to their baby carriages. There is absolutely no change in the fundamental position of the Palestinians that Israel is responsible for their problems. And we should rest assured that any quiet on our northern borders is only the fruit of Hezbollah’s getting ready for the next round.
No manner or degree of pruning the tree will alter the nature of its fruit. We believe that we are beyond the point where praying over the many maladies afflicting our nation will have any significant effect on the overall situation. The fire of God alone can purify our national soul and remove the sin that makes us liable to destruction. God told Joshua in the defeat following the victory over Jericho that unless the sin was purged from the camp, the sin of only one man, He would separate Himself from the entire nation.
The answer and direction we sense from the Lord in the light of all this is in the first part of this letter. Receive the present shakings. Allow the Spirit of the Lord to search our hearts. Wrestle with Him until we are changed. Strive to live in the light of eternity. Learn to hear His voice and be led by Him in all things. Identify and separate from humanistic, man-centered, controlling forces. Give God His place. Remove our religious garb and be real.
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May God bless you from Zion!
Your servants… For the Glory of His Name, Arni and Yonit |