“Sukkot 2020”

I told you in our “Quarantine” post about the timing of how we will be coming out of quarantine around the High Holidays. It’s a fantastic timing that God has been working on for much longer than we realize.

We were told by Millie about the word for transition in 2020, and about our journey to Israel being part of that, sometime back in October or November. Earlene and I were specifically told to “test” the word that was given to us, but we weren’t sure how. One of the most challenging things in a life of faith is figuring out how to test something. All of Scripture holds a convicting message for each of us, but sometimes it doesn’t seem to help when trying to test someone’s word. Especially when it’s spoken directly to us and it’s personally for us.

How do you test a word like that?

If you have suggestions on how to do that, I would love to hear your thoughts.

We have been working on this plan for most of a year now and even now we need to continually test what we’re doing against the Father’s will and His desire for us. Our desires creep in there to override His all too easy so that is a challenge in itself!

Now that we’re in Israel it seems appropriate to share one of the strongest confirmations that we received – once we remembered it. Even though we received the initial word from Millie in 2019, one of our confirmations happened straight from my own mouth back in 2017.

After several months of planning, one of our dear friends Larry* reminded me of the words I spoke after our first trip to Israel. When we got back from that trip, I walked into our congregation on Saturday morning smiling from ear to ear after the experience and I said “Sukkot 2020.” Those were among the first words I spoke that Sabbath after we returned in 2017. I had a goal to make pilgrimage to Israel for the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) during 2020.

As time passed those words faded in memory and that goal became a faint dream. For a short time, we were trying to plan that trip in 2019, but it didn’t work out for various reasons. God, it seems, was holding me to my word – Sukkot 2020.

It’s hard to express how baffling it was to remember that, and how encouraging it is to know that I had spoken those words in 2017 and they “coincidentally” seem to be falling in place for 2020. We were not purposely planning to meet that goal, but God seems to be orchestrating events and playing His galactic chessboard so our goal may come to fruition.

For us, this was one of the many major confirmations we received when planning this trip.

As with everything, there’s an important lesson in this. A long-forgotten word we speak, may not be so forgotten by the Creator of the Universe. Who else could orchestrate such a perfect timeline? 

It is interesting, however, to see how it’s still coming together. Just today as I’m writing this Earlene ran across an article that makes it appear that Israel will go into lockdown for the High Holidays. I have no idea what this means and how it will affect what we perceive as the plan, but I’m confident HaShem isn’t surprised in the least at how things are playing out.

I hope this testimony shows you that God hears your heart. Speak to Him of your desires and share those desires with the Body of Messiah. It may not happen as you expect, but He seems to completely faithful to follow through. That said, I would recommend that you write these things down. Maybe keep a prayer journal or some other record. This was almost forgotten and that would have been a great loss to our own testimony of God’s faithfulness.

What are your long-term desires? Can we join you in presenting those before our King?

As a bit of a side note, know that Israel is hurting. She is yearning for the Believer to brighten Her doorways again and for the joyous sounds of the multitudes worshiping our King. For those of you that don’t know this is a season of the greatest tourism spike each year. Millions and millions of Jews and Gentiles make the trip each year to come up to the Holy Mountain of God to celebrate the feast of Sukkot. For the Jew this is mandated in the Torah (the books of Moses). For the Gentile Believers this is in response to verses such as Zechariah 14:16 that clearly says we will all make the pilgrimage to Zion for Sukkot. Pray for the Land of Israel and pray that Her borders may be opened so that the worshippers of God Most High may come in and draw near according to His Word.

In this strange year of COVID-19, no one has any idea what the next day will bring. Except our great King and Bridge Groom. I’m praying that we will be welcome to travel to Jerusalem in the coming weeks, but only God will make that possible. Regardless, we are in Israel for “Sukkot 2020” – who else but God Himself could orchestrate such perfect timing?

*I wanted to put a note that I *think* it was Larry. Sorry if I’m assigning credit for that to the wrong person. It may have been any of 4 people I shared this word with.