Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem

Our Father In Heaven,
 Magnified and Sanctified is Your Most Holy Name!
 You Alone Are Worthy To Be Praised And Worshiped,
 For Your Alone Are Holy,
 Righteous,
 and Infinitely Just!
 You Are Eternally Faithful,
 and there is no Shadow of Turning with You.
 Light and Darkness Can Not Occupy The Same Space,
 and There is No Darkness With You.
 Good and Evil Can Not Dwell Together,
 And There is No Evil With You.
 Yet You Always Judge Rightly,
 With Grace and Truth,
 Justice and Mercy,
 Wisdom and Kindness,
 Firmness and Gentleness.

Let all that has been Concealed
Be Revealed.

Father, We Pray For The Peace Of Jerusalem,
According To Your Will and Promise.
We Pray That You Will Forgive The Sins
of Our Own Nation,
and Lead us all to Godly Repentance.
Create in Us Clean Hearts, Oh LORD,
and Renew a Right Spirit Within Us.

This we Pray Together,
As We Await Your Messiah,
Blessed Be He,
To Set Up His Kingdom,
And Make All Things Right.

”The Greatest Of these Is Love.”

If you would like to be on or off the Daily Ping List, please let me know.

ML/LTOS

Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem

A New Study For A New Year: Personalities

Exodus 16:1-7

16 And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt.

2 And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness:

3 And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

4 Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.

5 And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.

6 And Moses and Aaron said unto all the children of Israel, At even, then ye shall know that the Lord hath brought you out from the land of Egypt:

7 And in the morning, then ye shall see the glory of the Lord; for that he heareth your murmurings against the Lord: and what are we, that ye murmur against us?

( The King James Version)

________________________

I'm currently reading a book about the U2 Incident in May of 1960. A character jumped off the page and reminded me of my Mom. Now, you may ask, how on earth could a story about a downed spy plane in the Soviet Union involve my mother? Stay with me, and you'll see.

The Spy Plane contained Top Secret Photography Equipment that had been developed by a man named Edwin Land. During WW2, Land had worked on Night Goggles, Bomb Sights, and other Classified Projects. Mom worked in a Factory that made these items. One day, Mr. Land came in and said, "SMILE!". There was a flash as he took Mom's Picture. Then, after a wait of a few minutes, a paper slid out of the camera. Mr. Land treated it with some foul-smelling chemical, and then handed my Mom a picture. It was a little side-project Mr. Land was working on, to please his young daughter, who had asked why pictures couldn't be developed inside the camera. It was one of the first Polaroid Pictures ever taken.

Mom kept that picture from her teenage years until it disintegrated. I remember seeing it when I was growing up in the 1950s.

By a strange "coinkidink", I read about this just as the manna story came up in our readings, and it reminded me of this group of stories from a previous study of Exodus. Here we go!

A couple of stories today, and a Parable from the Talmud:

1. Top Secret: Mom diligently sat at her desk counting out the Payroll. The factory where she was employed, in Watertown MA, did essential War Work, manufacturing bomb sights for the B-17s that were pounding Germany. Unlike other businesses in the area, her company paid the workers on Thursday rather than Friday. No one knew why this was the case, but Mom's routine was to match up all the time cards with the correct amount, put the cash in an envelope, write the employee's name on it, and have someone else distribute the envelopes to the factory workers. Everything was Top Secret.

Absorbed in her work, she heard a sound,...looked up and saw two men pointing revolvers at her face. They demanded that she put all the cash into a sack, as well as all the completed pay envelopes. They took off, and Mom immediately called the Police. She told them that it HAD to be an "inside job" as nobody else knew that she counted the payroll on THURSDAY rather than the obvious Friday.

For the rest of her life, Mom was afraid of guns, although she didn't mind me having my concealed carry license because I was all alone 1700 miles from Boston.

2. Big "Warehouse Stores" became the rage in the late 20th Century. The most famous of these are B.J.'s and Sam's Club. You pay a yearly membership and then are able to purchase wholesale-sized packaging for lower prices than paying retail. This works great if you have an army of kids, several freezers, and a whole basement of storage space. Otherwise, you go out to get bread and milk, and come home with the Station Wagon full of refridgertor-sized boxes. For a small family or couple living in an apartment, it just isn't practical. Plus, food goes bad even refrigerated, if it is not used up right away.

3. Per Diem: In simpler times, people were paid for their work as they did it. Artisans and craftspeople were paid for each item as it was produced, and laborers were paid per diem, or "per day". Then it became customary to pay permanent workers on a weekly basis, for the previous week's work. This is probably a result of the six-day work week concluded by the Sabbath, which was mercifully, a day off. Then came the five-day work week with a two-day weekend, with Payday on Friday. Weekly paychecks were so common that they even appear in popular songs, celebrating Friday Payday (The "Eagle" in this song represents US Currency with the Bald Eagle on it.):

..."The Eagle flies on Friday,
Saturday I go out to play,
Sunday I go to church,
And get on my knees and pray,
Lord, have mercy"...
(From Stormy Monday Blues by T-Bone Walker)

Producing paychecks is a lot of work, so a number of businesses starting paying every two weeks. This was less work for the employer, but more work for the employee, as the money had to be budgeted carefully to last through a longer pay period. Then came once-a-month payments. Even though it is the same amount of money, it always seems to run out before the next monthly payment comes up. I can't even imagine how people would deal with annual payments. For the first few months, one would be living on Easy Street, and then, depending upon the the person's skill at money management, deprivation would set in. For me, based upon my own management of my once-a-month widow's benefit, I would be facing bankruptcy and starvation around May or June of each year. YIKES!

In the Talmud, a Sage is asked why the People of Israel were not given a year's supply of manna, so save time gathering. He responds, in the traditional manner, with a parable:

BT Yoma 76a —

R. Simon b. Yochai was asked by his disciples, “Why didn't the manna come down to Israel once each year?” He replied: “I shall explain by a parable. This may be compared to a king of flesh and blood who had one son, whom he provided with food once a year, and so [his son] would visit his father [only] once a year. Thereupon he provided his food every day, and he visited his father daily. So, too, Israel. One who had four or five children would worry and say: ‘Perhaps no manna will fall tomorrow, and everyone will die of hunger.’ Therefore, everyone directed their hearts to God in Heaven.”

It is interesting that the Rabbi didn't mention another provision of God which was delivered in a "bulk shipment". That is, of course, the Quails. The Quails were like a warehouse-store delivery, all at once. The Israelites were delighted with the abundance at first, like going into Sam's Club for the first time and seeing all that food, but they quickly tired of it. If they salted the meat, dried it, and attempted to preserve it for the journey, that probably wouldn't have worked either. It was too much, too soon, and pretty soon the last thing anyone wanted on the menu was Quail.

Manna came once a day except on the Sabbath. Friday was "Payday", as twice as much manna was gathered, so that none would be gathered on the Day of Rest. There was no storage at any other time, as the manna would breed maggots and stink if not consumed each day. The Israelites had to experience God's provision fresh every morning, as echoed by Jeremiah in Lamentations:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness. ...
Lamentations 3:22-23. English Standard Version

The Israelites, like the King's son in the Talmud, had to learn to rely upon the Mercies of God every single day.

Come and Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem, For Our FRiends in Need, For Persecuted Believers, and For Our Beloved Nation.

Blessings To All Who Visit This Garden of Prayer.

!עם ישראל חי
(The Spirit of Israel Lives!)

☔️🌸”Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.” (Hosea 6:3 NIV)🌸☔️

ML/LTOS

St. Olaf Choir~Holy Holy Holy

Merle Haggard~Precious Memories

Passion~In Christ Alone

Providence~Farther Along

Jim Brickman~How Great Thou Art

Gaithers~It Is Finished

Dallas Christian Sound~My God And I

Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem

Thank You, luvie, For Your Prayers and Sunday Hymns For the Peace of Jerusalem, For Our FRiends in Need, For Persecuted Believers, and For Our Beloved Nation.

Blessings To All Who Visit This Garden of Prayer.

!עם ישראל חי
(The Spirit of Israel Lives!)

☔️🌸”Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.” (Hosea 6:3 NIV)🌸☔️

ML/LTOS

🇺🇸Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem 🇮🇱(4/12/26)[Prayer]

Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem

Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem

Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem