CHOOSE FAITH

 

 

It is a beautiful Shabbat morning here in Jerusalem. It is so quiet I can hear a man talking down in the valley below me.  The sky is a clear blue and, from my balcony, I can just make out the hills of Jordan across the Dead Sea, a far cry from last week when I couldn't even see to the other side of my neighborhood, because of the thick blanket of dust.

 

That week, we had the worst dust storm in recorded history in Israel as a NE wind picked up dust from Iraq and Syria, and carried it over the whole land, where it hovered in the still air for 4 or more days. At its worst, on the Wednesday, the particulate matter in the air  in Jerusalem was over 170 times worse than its normal readings. Those who suffer from asthma and other respiratory diseases were at great risk and our hospitals treated hundreds of patients having breathing difficulties. Thankfully however we recorded no deaths unlike in Lebanon and Jordan where several people died. The dust was combined with temperatures in the high 30s and even reaching in to the 40s at times, humidity levels reaching the 90s along the coast, and not a breath of breeze to blow the dust away. It settled on everything turning the whole landscape to yellow. One morning I awoke and looked out my window and thought it had been snowing. All the trees were covered in a thick whitish layer of dust. 

 

The view from the Promenade over the Jerusalem. The Temple Mount is totally obscured by dust (and this was taken after the worst of the dust had settled)

Approximately the same view on a normal day.

 

Thankfully the temperatures have now returned to more-or-less normal temps (30ish in the day and 20ish at night)  for this time of year. We even had some rain one night, but it mainly fell in the north and in the southern deserts. Here we just had a few drops for 10 minutes or so. I did enjoy the lightning though which was spectacular.  

 

 

 



http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4700653,00.html
Floods in the Negev this week



The weather may have settled (for now anyway) but not so the city. This week has been marked by increasing violence. Even this morning the quiet has been periodically broken by the 'thub thub' of police helicopters circling overhead, a sure sign that there is trouble in the city. On the way home from work on Thursday I saw that the police had once more put the huge concrete blocks across the road that leads up into the neighboring Arab village of Sur Baher, and the intersection was littered with large stones and concrete blocks, and the road was stained black from Molotov cocktails that had been thrown at passing cars.  Multiple such incidents have been occurring all over the eastern part of the city this week and on the Temple Mount. On the Eve of Rosh Hashanah a Jewish man was killed when his car crashed off the road into a ditch after it was pelted with stones. A bus driver was lightly injured on Thursday when his bus was stoned. Elsewhere in the city, on the same night, another bus was attacked and burned, but the driver managed to escape unhurt. For several days now, Arab youths have barricaded themselves in the Mosque of Omar on the Temple Mount  and have been throwing rocks and firebombs at security forces. One of the firebombs set fire to some wooden beams sending billows of smoke above the Mount.

 

Smoke billows from the Temple Mount this week
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4701596,00.html

 

 

Bus on fire in Jerusalem on Thursday
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4701596,00.html

Yesterday afternoon, as the riots continued not much more than 500 m away, our congregation met for a picnic in a park. It was idyllic - lush green grass under shady horse chestnut trees, and the children playing happily in the little stream.

 

What a contrast! But that is the nature of our city - a city of great beauty and great ugliness, peaceful and violent, ancient and new, full of light and great darkness, a city of tremendous contradictions and contrasts.

 

Perhaps that is the nature of life itself.  Sometimes I look around and see so much suffering, violence and distress. The cancerous ideology of ISIS and its consequences threaten the stability of the whole world. Thousands of refugees fleeing its violence, and that of similar extremist Muslim groups in Africa and Syria, flood Europe. Other refugees are stuck in no-man's land with winter approaching. An earthquake and tsunami strikes Chile. Iran is still enriching uranium and plotting the overthrow of the Western world unchecked. North Korea threatens to fire nuclear warhead armed missiles at the USA,. The brutal civil war in Syria continues, and Russian and Iranian troops are now on Israel's doorstep in Syria.

 

What is more, I look around my friends and I see them all battling illness and other traumas in their lives, and I myself have not been spared. It can be depressing. It can lead to despair and a failure of faith. This morning I woke feeling a bit like Job - just one attack after another, and no end in sight. Job in the midst of his distress cried out to God, saying

 

What is man, that You should exalt him,
That You should set Your heart on him,
 That You should visit him every morning,
And test him every moment?
 How long?

Job 7:17-19 

 

 

How long must all this suffering go on?  Why does God allow it? Why are men so evil and cruel, inflicting such terrible things on each other? Why is nature so treacherous?

 

These were the questions on my heart this morning as I pondered these things. Such questions can bring us down to the depths of despair and lead to a loss of faith. A few years ago I was suffering from such black thoughts and began to question, not God's existence, but his goodness.  Have you ever done the same? It is a scary place to be, because only in God's goodness is there any light, or hope in the world. I teetered on the brink of losing my faith. One day I poured out my heart to a wise friend, and she said, "Faith is something you choose". And I knew this was my answer, just as it was the answer that Job received so long ago.  God never answered his anguished questions, but He challenged Job to think upon God's majesty and power. 

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:

² “Who is this who darkens counsel
By words without knowledge?
³ Now prepare yourself like a man;
I will question you, and you shall answer Me.

⁴ “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding.
⁵ Who determined its measurements?
Surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
⁶ To what were its foundations fastened?
Or who laid its cornerstone,
⁷ When the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?...

 



Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
And caused the dawn to know its place,...

 

Have you entered the springs of the sea?
Or have you walked in search of the depths?
¹⁷ Have the gates of death been revealed to you?
Or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death?
¹⁸ Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth?...

 

    Job 38

 

God confronts Job with his puniness and contrasts it with His own greatness and power. Who is man to question God, who has created us and the whole Universe?  Yes there are questions, legitimate questions, but for now anyway God will not or cannot give us the answers. We have only a choice, Despair or Faith. And what is more,   without uncertainty and doubt, there can be no Faith.  

 

Having said that Faith is not blind. Faith is based on fact, logic and our own experience of the world. When we chose faith we do not throw away our brain. We use our brain to build faith. When I begin to doubt or lose my peace in God, I turn my thoughts to the revelation of His nature in Scripture, in my past experiences of His goodness and in the beauty of Nature. Paul in the letter to the Philippians said this

:

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.   The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.

 

Philippians 4: 8-9

 

If we chose Faith, we may not find the answers to all our questions, but we will find peace - the peace that passes all understanding.

 

"Love in the Mist" Netanya Winter Pond