I live in Galilee. We know what’s coming, you can literally feel the tension, you can almost cut the heaviness in the air with a knife. The question is not if, but when. Our hearts break at the sight of what is happening in the south of the country. We feel paralyzed. So far we have been spared attacks in recent years, with the exception of a few isolated incidents such as the one in April, which only affected a few towns in the Western Galilee.
I know families who were surprised by the rocket attack in April and whose children are still traumatized to this day. They live close to the border with Lebanon and know that it will soon rain rockets again. It’s not just the children who are afraid. The adults are well aware of the difference: this time Hezbollah would be in control, and experience has shown that they don’t do things by halves. For many people, the war of 2006, which lasted a month, is still fresh in their minds.
UNIFIL has already left southern Lebanon, and residents of Israeli towns near the border have received a message telling them to evacuate their homes. Army helicopters circle in the distance, but otherwise there is an eerie calm. It’s the calm before the storm. How do you deal with this situation?
You get on your knees. It’s situations like these that bring you closer to God. Because you realize how tiny you are and how big God must be, who has everything in His hands, including the current situation. He knows the background, He knows why what is happening, what happens next and what our future looks like.
This all-or-nothing situation, in which the existence of the State of Israel is essentially at stake, is nerve-wracking. Losing is not an option; even most Israeli Arabs would rather live under Jewish rule than Muslim rule.
This existential crisis offers the opportunity to again draw closer to the Creator of heaven and earth. When things are too good for us, doesn’t our sinful nature easily move away from God? And don’t we run, shaken, into the arms of God when we don’t know what to do and are confronted with a situation in which we are completely overwhelmed?
The answer is prayer.
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