Airport Musings

Another sign of otherness in me was as I encountered people along the way; and when I found myself on the last plane ride between the Holy Land and us, giggling and cuddly with my Mom on the plane, the Lord reminded me that affection was all but plague to me before Love (1 John 4: 7-11) entered my heart to dwell.

I knew even as a young child that I did not have the ability to love my family in my own power. There was a wall there; I couldn’t do it. It was as if that part of the imago Dei was missing from my DNA, that aspect of creaturely-ness withheld. And I was at least aware enough to know that love was something I utterly did not understand.

But there I was: on a plane across the Atlantic Ocean with a closeness to my family and friends that I am neither capable of creating nor maintaining. It is fellowship, and it is a gift from God (1 John 1:7).

Speaking of people, there is something uniquely mosaic about getting on an international flight. But I suppose flight in general has a beautiful aspect of bringing all sorts of people together (into one tight and mostly uncomfortable place). But this flight had Jewish people: some beautiful, some modern, some burly, and some orthodox. What I’m getting at is the sense of self-awareness that comes when your chosen appearance (by way of clothing, grooming, etc.) is starkly contrasted to another or multiples around you.

It wasn’t even the different language that was spoken that heightened the barrier. It was the body language. I tried to smile at them with the love of Christ on more than one occasion, and instantly felt burning judgment from their eyes for my clothing and perceived ignorance I assumed (mainly from the orthodox males). But having a Messianic Jewish friend and knowing the seriousness with which they have made covenant with their eyes and minds and bodies, I found myself dwelling in the background of my mind about this acceptance that I could not and would not be receiving from these people.

And you know what? I found my flesh trying to think of ways that would be good to change to please them, second guessing that I could be wrong about the way I think and dress and interact in public.

Thanks be to the Holy Spirit who revealed the foolishness of that thinking! But it was astonishing and wind-sucking to me how quickly and convincingly those doubts and lies interjected.

One theme it made me think about was human psychology, and the Scripture where God says that,

God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outer appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart

1 Samuel 16:7b

This particular Word was given to Samuel, who anointed the first kings of Israel: Saul and David. God actually spoke it to Samuel while he was trying to figure out from a lineup which of Jesse’s sons God had already chosen to be king. Samuel was using human measurements: power in the form of burliness and commanding presence, weakness in the lack thereof, etc. This is the very reason we are called to walk by faith and not by sight, which basically means we’re walking blind since the passage in Hebrews is pretty clear that faith is the evidence of things unseen.

The real question that was churning in my heart was not actually about whether I should wear a head covering and change into a skirt. The real question was: do you believe Me? Because if I believe Jesus that He has set me free from the law of sin and death into a law of grace and life, in which the Holy Spirit will tell me when there are things (habits, choices, lifestyle, words etc.) that need to change in order to better glorify God, then I am not swayed to change in order to gain man’s approval, whether by the garb of wealthy Americans or Hassidic prayer shawls.

It also made me think of Galatians, Paul’s first letter to a branch of the church of Jesus. This letter is a powerful argument about not being swayed by men into laws (and more importantly the all-consuming mindset of do-this-lists), and holding to the pure faith of the gospel of Christ. There are many other things I could say about this letter, but I’ll save you a chunk of time so you can spend it with Galatians for yourself J

The Word was comforting, clarifying…swaddling in a way as I remembered the sweet command,

It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore, keep standing firm, and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1

Later on the flight, in that last hour before we landed in Tel Aviv, I studied a passage from 1 Kings (which is awesome by the way). I wondered on the inside what the Jewish people around me were thinking. Did they see me studying the Old Testament? Did they see the colored pencils and become offended? Did they see the contentment on my face, or the way my fingers touched the words on the pages with affection? I don’t know; but it felt like a little victory to quietly spend that time learning about God in public. It felt like standing firm, and believing.

You’ve been so kind to make it this far into the post, and I haven’t even told you the things you wanted to know about yet (ISRAEL)! But I just want to leave you with one last passage. It’s from 1 Kings 8, where Solomon dedicates the temple (the first stationary place of worship to God ever built) with prayer and sacrifice and celebration. At the end of His prayer (which is also beautiful and very rich), he says a blessing in which some of my favorite requests to the Lord are recorded:

May the Lord our God be with us, as He was with our fathers; may He not leave us or forsake us, that He may incline our hearts to Himself to walk in all His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His ordinances, which He commanded our fathers. And may these words of mine, with which I have made supplication before the LORD, be near to the LORD our God day and night, that He may maintain the cause of His servant and the cause of His people Israel, as each day requires, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no one else. Let your heart therefore be wholly devoted to the LORD our God, to walk in His statutes and to keep His commandments as it is this day.