We have a hand raiser and the microphone is coming to you.
I’m not really against, I’m totally for Israel. My brother’s boyfriend’s family, I think they’re Arab. His aunt specifically is stuck in Gaza. She can’t get out. She’s gone back to her apartment, which sucks. It’s horrible. I hate it. I don’t know how to relate to them. And I’ve offered prayers and said, we’re praying for peace. We’re praying, but they know I’m pro-Israel. But I just am kind of looking for verbiage maybe to offer to people who are hurting.
So a couple of questions: I don’t know if these are your questions in here, but some of the questions in here are basically, if I’m this way, how do I relate to people in my life that are Palestinian? How do I talk to them? How do I encourage them?
I think that number one, we need to listen. We need to listen to people and not just hear them. We need to understand and we need to take time. The thing with this conflict is it’s gone on for 75 plus years. There is so much pain on both sides. And so you have to stop approaching it from who’s right, who’s wrong, and more approaching it to who needs love, who needs understanding? Who can I minister to? Because there is objective right and wrong in the Bible, but we’re talking about people. People need to be approached with compassion. And so the language that we use, the concepts that we try to communicate God’s truth with, what I try to do is just build a bridge of understanding. Hey, look, we’re not going to get to the same conclusion on this, but I just want you to know I really value understanding how you feel. I really value understanding what it must feel like to have a family member trapped over there. I want to sit on that with you and really let it affect me. And I want to weep with you, and I want that to motivate me to pray, and I want that to motivate me to seek righteousness.
And we can avoid having to maybe jump all the way to the conclusion because I think that the conclusion in this case is that those of us who are followers of Jesus, who have a biblical worldview do know that the Israeli state, the Jewish state isn’t perfect, but it, like America, brings so much freedom and positive liberality to culture. There’s people that can stand up and say things, and they don’t have to worry about the government whacking them. They don’t have to worry about going to prison. This is where the Arab world has failed the Palestinians because they’ve used the poor Palestinians as an entrapped pawn on their chessboard against Zionism, Jewish people wanting to live in their native homeland. And so you’re seeing this on the news. Egypt doesn’t want the Palestinians to come in from Gaza because they say, we don’t want them in here. They’re terrorists. We don’t want them draining our society. It’s tragic.
So I think really we just need to put more compassion and empathy into our language. The reality is this, y’all, God is right all the time, right? He doesn’t need us to defend how right he is. I mean, what our job is to do is to help elevate people’s understanding to His perspective being right. But at the end of the day, He has to convince them, not us. They have to come into a convinced point of view because of wrestling through what God said, and our job is to just kind of walk ’em in that direction. And if they get to a point where they’re like, I’m out, okay, then we’ll just stay there and we can be patient. Or maybe we don’t talk about this, we talk about something else. But I think having relationship with people is the most important part. And so if we just cut ourselves off, that’s why I would caution you even on social media. Believe me, I’ve had some hot takes that I’ve deleted, that I walked away and I was like, I’m not going to say that. It’s true. It’s totally true, but I just don’t want to have to unnecessarily alienate anyone that I might be able to build a bridge to by being loving and kind.
Can I add two scriptures? One I think is really important. When the angel of the Lord comes to Joshua before Jericho, his question, Joshua’s question is, whose side are you on us or theirs? And his answer is no. And one of them is Israel. So we’re on God’s side. If I’m choosing between Joshua and the angel of the Lord, I’m going with the angel of the Lord. So one thing is you can say, I’m not on the side of it. I’m on God’s side. I want to go where God is. And the scripture I’d partner that with is all Arabs are descendants of who? Ishmael. And Ishmael felt rejected by the Jewish people. Why was Ishmael kicked out? Because Isaac was the chosen one. And we’re still seeing that conflict play out today. But what happened after Ishmael was kicked out? Hagar who was Egyptian, she puts him on the grass essentially in a bush goes an arrow throw away because she doesn’t want to see him die. And he’s crying out, Ishmael’s crying out. And scripture says, God hears Ishmael. Even though Hagar’s crying out as well, it says she’s bitterly weeping. And God says, I’ve heard the cries of Ishmael. And he says, the same promises I gave to Abraham, I’m going to give to Ishmael too. Not the covenant of I’m choosing these people to bless the nations, but the promise that I’m going to make you a great nation and I’m going to be with you, that I’m going to still be true to my word.
And so what I would say to your friends that are Arab that are seeing this rejection happen, they feel rejected by the Jewish people. That’s not new. And my comfort would be God still hears Ishmael. Amen. He still has a plan for Ishmael. In fact, Abraham, who’s kind of the father of them both, Jews and Arabs, his heart was broken that Ishmael left and he had to submit and say, God, I don’t know what you’re saying because God said, Hey, do what Sarah’s telling you to do if she wants to send her away. And so he had to submit his heart to the Lord, but God wants them to be restored.
And I’ll make it really quick. We were at a conference where there’s a Messianic Jewish believer, and he was surrounded by Arabs, Egyptians, Jordanians, and Palestinians, and he talked about how it’s all about Ishmael. As Jewish people, we have to love Ishmael. They’re technically the firstborn. We have to bring them into the family. They’re a part of the family. And so he speaks and he’s just like, it’s all about Ishmael. Then he gives the mic to the Arabs, and all of the Arabs said, what? It’s all about Israel. It’s all about our Jewish brothers and sisters. It’s all about God choosing them. And we are brought into that family. And my mind’s blown because this is supposed to be the most complex conflict in the entire world, and yet they were repenting. It literally ended by a Jordanian woman washing their feet while a Jewish woman was washing their feet, repenting for how they felt about each other. And so we got to see the solution to the most complex conflict in the world. It was uniting under Yeshua because then Isaac and Ishmael come back together. Jew and Gentile come together and we’re all part of the same family.
