You call the stars each by name. The keys of hell and death are in Your hands. You regard the nations as less than nothing. Who is like You, O LORD, among the gods? Who can contend with You? When I consider Your ways I am filled with the awe and wonder expressed by David in Psalm 8:4 – "What is man you You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?" We are specks of dust, small and insignificant. Yet for reasons not fully understood by us You seek us out. You offer redemption freely to mankind but at great cost to You – the life of Your Son.
Words escape me. Strength has failed me. Abba, I bow before You and cry softly, "Here I am."
Disturbing news developments from Israel: The Olmert government bans Jewish prayer from the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site (they can pray in their heart, but lip-moving is forbidden). A Katyusha rocket fired from Gaza hits north of Ashkelon for the first time. Minority religious groups, including Evangelical Christians and Messianic Jews, face revocation of their Israeli citizenship. Two off-duty Israeli soldiers are killed in a shooting attack while hiking near Hebron. Olmert stops home construction in East Jerusalem to appease Bush before his Jan. 9-11 visit to Israel; building in Samaria and Judea can proceed only with the government's approval.
The noose is tightening around Israel. The swords of Gog and Magog are drawn. Can you hear the footsteps of Messiah?
Addendum – As Bush heads to Israel to pimp the Road Map . . .
• A freak January tornado rakes Jerusalem, Ark., detroying Mt. Zion Church.
• Lakota Indians secede from the United States. As Bush lobbies for a Palestinian state on Israel's biblical homeland, America's heartland comes under siege. Lakota leaders, claiming they no longer are U.S. citizens, have visited embassies in Bolivia, Chile, Venezuela and South Africa, and plan future diplomatic missions overseas. The new country will issue its own passports and driving licences. Lakota country includes parts of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.
• Tamar Yonah of Israel National Radio compares Bush to an invading Babylonian king. The president will try to "lay claim to G-d's trophy," she says. "Do we give honor to kings who have such contempt for G-d and His people, or do we tell it like it is?"
• Rabbis address Bush as Gog, the end-day enemy of Israel prophesied in Ezekiel 38.
• Heavy fog blankets Israel as Bush's motorcade heads to Ramallah for a meeting with Palestinian leaders. An Israeli motorist, stopped at a gas station, counts 70 cars in the entourage. That same day a freak fog causes a 70-car pileup in Florida, the worst highway disaster in state history.
• Israelis wonder how they will defend a country nine miles wide. Here is what the Jewish state would look like if it bows to political pressure and surrenders Judea and Samaria. Sizing up Israel in 1998, Bush remarked, "In Texas we have driveways longer than that."
• Globalist leaders have Jerusalem in their crosshairs. Yet Psalm 2:1-6 makes clear who controls the destiny of Zion: Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, "Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us." He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the LORD shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: "Yet I have set My King on my holy hill of Zion."