“They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength….” You probably recognize these words from Is. 40:31. But what does that mean, “wait upon the Lord?” King James’ translators used the English word “wait” for the Hebrew word “kaw-vah.” Many modern translations render the same word as “trust in” or “hope in.” Kaw-vah literally means “to expectantly look for.” Remember when you were a kid and Grandma was coming to your house? You’d run and look out the window over and over, or go out and swing on the porch swing until you saw her car turn down your street! That’s Kaw-vah – to hopefully wait while expectantly looking. So, Is. 40:31 could easily sound like this: They that… hopefully wait and expectantly look for the Lord to show up in the midst of their present circumstance….will renew their strength!
Right now Des and I are playing the waiting game. We are waiting for our house to sell. (Know of anybody looking for a nice 3 bdr. brick ranch on the lake in Cherrydale?) We are waiting to see what kind of house we will be moving into when we get to our new home in Kansas. We are waiting to see what kind of jobs might be available for Des. We are waiting for answers to questions that right now have no answers. We are waiting. Anybody else hate to wait? Sometimes we do it well, other times….not so much.
I am reminded of Elijah’s weatherman… (Know who he was?) Three years before the great “call-down-fire-from-heaven” confrontation on Mt. Carmel (see 1Kings 18), God had told Elijah to pray that it would not rain as punishment on Israel for their idolatry, and for three years it did not rain. Then after the big show-down where baal was “showed-up,” the people turned their hearts back to God. So Elijah asked God to once again send rain upon the drought-stricken land. As Elijah began to pray he told his “weatherman” servant, “Go look for the rain-cloud.” (1 Kings 18:43) Now that’s kaw-vah! But, even though he was praying according to God’s will, there was absolutely no sign of rain. Again he prayed, and again he sent his servant to expectantly look. Over and over Elijah kept praying and kept anticipating an answer… until on the seventh trip, the servant saw one tiny cloud no bigger than a man’s fist! Hearing the partly cloudy weather report, Elijah told King Ahab, “Better hitch up your chariot and head for the palace because a real toad-strangler is a-brewin!” (I translated the Hebrew on that one myself!) And sure enough, before they got to Jezreel, the cloud became a thunderstorm and the downpour came!
So what’s the point? “Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.”(Luke 18:1) Are you playing the waiting game too? Well, keep praying and don’t give up! Pray and expectantly look for God’s answer! Wait upon the Lord, and He will renew your strength! Remember Elijah’s weatherman!
P.S. for those of you who read between the lines, you probably noticed something between these. After almost 18 wonderful years serving the Lord here in Mechanicsville, Des and I will be finishing the year here at Hanover Friends and then after Christmas, we will be heading back home to Kansas to take a pastorate in a small town near Wichita. I have dearly loved being able to share my “View” with you here in the Local for the past 11 years and pray that you have been blessed! I will have a few more articles in the paper before we have to say our good-byes. But for now, let’s agree to pray for one another, expectantly looking for God’s perfect answer!
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Ahmadinejad at the UN, “Stutxnet” and Esther
In the words of former President Ronald Reagan, “There he goes again!” Last month, Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared at the UN making his annual America-bashing speech to the delegates, and once again, as he has done each and every time he has spoken to the UN, he included a prayer for the appearance of the Mahdi. Most mass media outlets failed to cover this item, but the prayer was there, in fact, it was his opening line! “O Allah, hasten the arrival of Imam al-Mahdi and grant him good health and victory and make us his followers and those who attest to his righteousness.” Those of you who follow my column know that I believe that the Mahdi, whom Muslims believe to be their messiah, will be the world leader whom the Bible refers to as “The Anti-Christ.” Ahmadinejad certainly believes in the soon appearance of the Mahdi and he is doing everything in his power to hasten that arrival, including the building of nuclear weapons and threatening to use them against Israel - plunging the world into chaos to bring forth the Mahdi. Here’s a link to the full transcript of Ahmadinejad’s UN remarks:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/38037667/Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-United-Nations-General-Assembly-FULL-Transcript
In spite of Ahmadinejad’s chilling words, an interesting thing has been happening inside Iran. Over the past few months their nuclear capabilities have taken an unexpected down-turn. The number of Iran’s operational centrifuges needed to enrich uranium to weapons-grade level has actually declined for the first time ever after years of steady growth. Has Iran bowed to international pressure and slowed their hell-bent pace towards the bomb? Hardly. It seems a computer worm, a mal-ware virus known as “stutxnet” has infected their enrichment computers! Over 30,000 Iranian computers are now infected with this bug which has knocked nearly 1/3 of their centrifuges off-line. This might be the work of hackers, but more likely it is a targeted attack on the Iranian nuclear program. But from whom? The CIA? The Israeli Mossad? The stutxnet virus has infected computers from other countries as well, with some infections taking place before it hit Iran, but it seems to have been intentionally planted in the Iranian atomic plants much like the virus that knocked out the alien enemy in the sci-fi movie “Independence Day” or its literary fore-runner from several decades ago, H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds!
Of course, no one is taking credit for this attack….at least not overtly! Many prognosticators, including me, have been predicting an Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear sites before now. Why hasn’t it come? Perhaps they know something we don’t. Maybe Israel already attacked them from the inside! Virus experts have analyzed the computer code in this worm and noted that one of the main “files” in the code is named “Myrtus.” Myrtus is the latin root from which we get our English word myrtle – the fragrant plant. Why is that interesting? You may remember a beautiful Jewish girl named Esther who became a queen and foiled a Persian (Iranian) plot to wipe out all the Jews? Her Hebrew name was Hadassah, which is the Hebrew word for…. myrtle! Too far a stretch? Maybe not. One thing is sure, this “cyber” attack, wherever it came from, seems to have worked beautifully, it has given Israel (and us all) more time and it has not cost a single life nor endangered a single soldier, sailor or airman. Now that’s a miracle worthy of Esther!
Ahmadinejad is working with all his might to speed the coming of his messiah. Are we speeding the coming of ours? “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.” (2Peter 3:10-12a)
Source: The New York Times, “In a Computer Worm, Possible Biblical Clue.” Markoff and Sanger, Sept. 29, 2010
http://www.scribd.com/doc/38037667/Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-United-Nations-General-Assembly-FULL-Transcript
In spite of Ahmadinejad’s chilling words, an interesting thing has been happening inside Iran. Over the past few months their nuclear capabilities have taken an unexpected down-turn. The number of Iran’s operational centrifuges needed to enrich uranium to weapons-grade level has actually declined for the first time ever after years of steady growth. Has Iran bowed to international pressure and slowed their hell-bent pace towards the bomb? Hardly. It seems a computer worm, a mal-ware virus known as “stutxnet” has infected their enrichment computers! Over 30,000 Iranian computers are now infected with this bug which has knocked nearly 1/3 of their centrifuges off-line. This might be the work of hackers, but more likely it is a targeted attack on the Iranian nuclear program. But from whom? The CIA? The Israeli Mossad? The stutxnet virus has infected computers from other countries as well, with some infections taking place before it hit Iran, but it seems to have been intentionally planted in the Iranian atomic plants much like the virus that knocked out the alien enemy in the sci-fi movie “Independence Day” or its literary fore-runner from several decades ago, H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds!
Of course, no one is taking credit for this attack….at least not overtly! Many prognosticators, including me, have been predicting an Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear sites before now. Why hasn’t it come? Perhaps they know something we don’t. Maybe Israel already attacked them from the inside! Virus experts have analyzed the computer code in this worm and noted that one of the main “files” in the code is named “Myrtus.” Myrtus is the latin root from which we get our English word myrtle – the fragrant plant. Why is that interesting? You may remember a beautiful Jewish girl named Esther who became a queen and foiled a Persian (Iranian) plot to wipe out all the Jews? Her Hebrew name was Hadassah, which is the Hebrew word for…. myrtle! Too far a stretch? Maybe not. One thing is sure, this “cyber” attack, wherever it came from, seems to have worked beautifully, it has given Israel (and us all) more time and it has not cost a single life nor endangered a single soldier, sailor or airman. Now that’s a miracle worthy of Esther!
Ahmadinejad is working with all his might to speed the coming of his messiah. Are we speeding the coming of ours? “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.” (2Peter 3:10-12a)
Source: The New York Times, “In a Computer Worm, Possible Biblical Clue.” Markoff and Sanger, Sept. 29, 2010
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