After we left the city gates we walked to the top of the hills and viewed the mountains to the east and the cities to the west. Does anyone remember what happened on the mountains? The word shephelah means low translated lowlands. What is the danger with shephelah? Why was this such an important place? Where is our shephelah and how do we minister? What do you remember about this lesson? Am so blessed by all your comments! I'm getting pictures from Terry tomorrow and then I have another 2300 pix to grab.
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The touching part for me about our Shephelah experience was to picture those two men, Samson vs. David, in their separate caves...both feeling lonely, both needing community, but responding totally differently to their situations! I want to be a David, who can lend help and show shalom to others right out of my lonely cave times!!! 1 Samuel 22:1,2
As I recall, we walked up to the top of tel gezer and looked out over the coastal plain where the 'via maris' passed through and as many as 1.5 to 2 million people a year traveled through. We also saw a set of 'standing stones' at the top of the tel. God placed the Israelites in this strategic place, the Shephelah to engage the people of the coastal plain, to be a witness for Him to all nations of the earth. In the same way, we are to be in the world but not of the world, and He calls us to live such lives that we are 'standing stones' causing people to want to know our God.
Man, this is A tough one as there were soooo many lessons in the Coastal Plain, Shephelah, and Judah Mountains. The lesson that spoke to me was that the Jews lived in the Judah Mountains and the Philistines lived in the Coastal Plains...But it was in the Shephleah where they intermingled. It was here that they/We need to be a Standing Stone, a Living Stone, a City on a Hill, that City Gate offering Shalom to the people living in the Chaos of the Coastal Plain....BUT if don't have Shalom in our own life or our Standing Stone is 'lying down' as much as or more than it is 'Standing'....What do we really have to offer them? Because now we're just like them.
Spencer
A verse that God gave me is James 1:27, 'Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless adn widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspottted from the world.' That sounds like city gates and shephelah living, a city on a hill. The unspotted part is hard though. We need to remember,
'it is written.' Judah Mountains - Jacob's dream with the ladder resting on the ground with its top reaching to heaven and the angels of Adonai going up and down on it, Beit-El(house of God),
Hazak v'amatz - Be strong and courageous!
I'm remebering how close the shephelah is to the coastal plain. Looking out toward the Mediterranean and its vibrant cities - so easy to slide down the hill! I confess that I have the potential to spend more time looking at the 'Mediterranean' than errecting faith stones and shining brightly to aid those in the plain who are 'looking up'. John Calvin said, "There will be no excuse of the indolence of those who both conceal the gifts of God, and waste time in idleness."
The lesson from the Shephelah that impacted me was "do it in community." Like Samson, without community we will become discouraged and be sucked into the pagan culture. Remember the 3,000 men who came to the cave where Samson was and tried to stop him? It's no wonder he didn't live out his calling! David, a man after God's heart, cried out for 400 men (community!) when he was in the cave alone. Scary as it is, I want to become community with my church and other Christians to enter the chaos of the "pagan world" and together show the shalom of God!
I remember sling your stone that the world may know. MY stones, the gifts God gave me, are a pouch filled now with much life experience. My stones are not for death except for the evil one. My stones are to be the living water, shade, and dust of following the rabbi. I will sling them one drop at a time, one leaf at a time, one step at a time. Some will land in a fertile place that God will bless beyond my understanding. And like David, whose stone was slung for a community and God, mine will be slung for community and God.
The whole Shephaleh thing has kinda set my mind a spinning. It's exciting to think of not hiding away in our "comfort zone" of Coastal Plain, and yet rather scary to represent Christ well, and like Rachel said, not be sucked into the world. I agree, the idea of needing each other, and being community has just taken on a whole new preciousness to me. I sure do need you all!! The other thing that struck me was how Samson sinned first with his eyes, and he ended up getting his eyes gouged out.
not to sound like a repeat here but the thing that struck me the most was the difference between david and samson and what they did. David gathered a community with him
so he would not have to do it on his own. While Samson was a loner and sat in a cave by himself. The shephelah is work and it takes a community working together to get things accomplished
mark
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