"The DNA Map of our lives"

Effects of calling/destiny on our own planning/choices

Philip Blom

INTRODUCTION

Do we have more of a say in our choices than what Jonah had? Many people sort of, "decide what we want to do, and then ask God's blessing on it." Does it work that WAY? You'll see from discussions and articles based on my JOURNAL about the choices my wife Marie and I had to make in our lives and the results thereof.

Let me give you a short intro into our lives to explain the origin of these questions.

During the fourteenth year of our marriage, factors that had all along caused disharmony in our married life, suddenly seemed insurmountable and would have caused us to separate had the Lord not intervened. The vehicle for intervention was Campus Crusade for Christ that was at the time experiencing a revival in their ministry in our city, Pretoria in South Africa. We became part of it and grew spiritually in leaps and bounds and even soon developed the desire to serve the Lord full-time. In fact, I then realized that a degree of unfulfillment I'd experienced all along in my scientific career had been due to the fact that I'd all along had a calling on my life. We soon learnt that the Lord wanted us to go to Israel.

At that time we could already look back and observe with surprise that the Lord had been preparing us over a long period for this calling by means of various things. As we obeyed and proceeded with the calling this engineering by God to keep us faithful, suitably equipped and in step with his purposes, continued to amaze us. Lack of understanding from others and even at times ourselves caused us to have thoughts like those of Jeremiah:

O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me..... But if I say, "I will not mention him or speak any more in his name," his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.

Fortunately Jeremiah could utter another BUT, and so could we:

But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced; their dishonor will never be forgotten. Jeremiah 20:7-11.

Once we arrived in Israel it became clear that our calling had to do with the fulfillment of the prophecies about the role Gentiles (non-Jews) will play in the restoration of Israel at the end of this age. It is clearly reflected by the following scriptures:

Isaiah 14:2 Nations will take them and bring them to their own place. And the house of Israel will possess the nations as menservants and maidservants in the LORD'S land. They will make captives of their captors and rule over their oppressors
Isaiah 49:22 This is what the Sovereign LORD says: "See, I will beckon to the Gentiles, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their shoulders.
Isaiah 60:10 "Foreigners will rebuild your walls, and their kings will serve you. Though in anger I struck you, in favor I will show you compassion.
Isaiah 61:5 Aliens will shepherd your flocks; foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.

Wedding & other Photos of Philip and Marie and their family

All this started in 1983. During our third term in Israel, about eight years later, our marriage nevertheless still broke up. It plunged me in a terrific emotional as well as spiritual battle to find answers and retain my sanity. In this battle the Lord told me that he was going to restore the marriage.

Back home, with us living separately, I felt led to write down everything that had happened, what the Lord had said and how he was seeing me through the crisis. A concept of a book with the title, "God's scheming in my life" evolved based on my observations of the way the Lord had been arranging circumstances in our lives. It even included our marriage, and just about all of it served to prepare us for the calling he'd had for us in Israel. The book was supposed to show how the Lord was going to fulfil the promises he had made about my future in Israel and the restoration of our marriage. With that in mind, I started keeping a diary, which eventually amounted to more than a thousand pages.

After the divorce in 1992, I found work on a moshav (farm) in Israel, but returned a year later to be remarried according, I thought, to the Lord's promise. Nothing had changed inherently, however, and the marriage failed again after about seven months. I again went back to Israel, only to return a number of times to try to move to a point that we could remarry successfully. In September 1998, after another attempt, the Lord said to me, "You've gone full circle," and then gave me the same scripture we had received in the beginning - Ezekiel 2:3...Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites...

My calling to Israel after our separation entailed a lot of coming and going and I am presently (2005) on about my twelth stint in Israel since it all started in 1983. I've now spent about twelve years in Israel. Except for one mission, the last one Marie and I did together in 1990, I never knew what the Lord had in mind for me in Israel and how I was going to survive. Every visit was therefore done in faith and I have documented a wealth of testimonies, lessons and experiences from it. Most valuable of all, were direct guidance words, scriptures, leads (viz. for volunteer positions), etc. from the Lord. Of these I have managed to list about 230 incidences until now. I treasure them because they represent the Lord's direct involvement in my life and calling. It's way more valuable than material riches! As the Lord also said at the end of 1999: "What you have are these words, it doesn't matter that some were given under severe conditions, they are still my words to you"

The idea was, as I have said, to use the material in the journal for a book about God's "scheming" in our lives, but the never ending battle to find God's provision as he plays for time, has definitely not been conducive to writing a novel.

What has he been waiting for? As I have explained in "My Calling to Israel," it seems to be for the end scenario where the world's hatred of the Jews and Israel will also spill over to their supporters like Christian Zionists.

I might only then get around to writing the story, unless someone else would like to do it for me...! Any offers?

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