There are two significant places in Jerusalem that claim to be the place of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection: The Garden Tomb also called Gordon’s Calvary and Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Both have very convincing proofs and very convincing negative aspects as well, so it would be hard to say for sure where our Lord spent the last moments of His Passion.

Of course, God has allowed this on purpose, lest we worship the spot and not the Person. How strange we humans are on that kind of stuff. We just love to get fixed on things.

Personally, I prefer Gordon’s Calvary. It is close to a rocky mountain that sets to the north of Mt. Zion and is high enough from city view that it would make a good place for Roman executions. Also, there is a tranquil peace in the garden below that used to be an ancient vineyard and wine pressing place.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is dark and scary; but my husband, who has studied many of the geographic/archeological spots in Israel, says there is more scholarly proof that this could be the place. Creepy place. Really.

But. Never. Mind. The Garden Tomb is still my favorite. Here’s bit of history about the place.

There is a tomb with an entrance and grave carved out of the stone in the garden, so it gives you the idea of what a sepulcher would be like in Jesus day. It is wonderful to sit in the cool next to the tomb and imagine what it was like that first Easter morning when Mary found the stone rolled away and the grave empty.

There are lots of little coves in this beautiful, ancient garden where you can get alone and meditate on the death and resurrection of our Lord. It is truly one of my favorite spots in Jerusalem.

I wrote this poem after a trip to the Garden Tomb.

Royal Linen

From the Nile’s fertile crescent,

flax flowered to spin royalty a garment.

Colored in red and purple,

Egypt’s fine linen

swathed imperial couches and kingly graves.

In Israel and Phoenicia,

dreamy women pressed textured fabric

to yearning hearts,

and merchants bartered

camels, cinnamon, and shiny stones

for the luxurious textile treasure.

Through history,

linen wove passion with purpose:

a priest’s perfect garment,

a tabernacle’s curtain,

a crimson veil,

a bride’s prepared gift,

fine furnishings,

sails, and carpet covers.

Once a king, clothed in pure linen,

even danced with all his might.

Most precious purpose ascended

above the cherubim and seraphim

and bore deeper than old earth’s core

the finely twisted linen

that cradled a dead Jewish king.

Transformed shroud into mantle,

by blazon light,

the royal linen glowed transparent

and wafted fragrant with spikenard.

That linen, stained with blood and folded neatly,

imposed life’s ultimate gift

in a garden tomb, found empty.

© Bonnie Saul Wilks

all rights reserved

“Ruth Gleaning” by Jame Tissot, 1896

Jewish Days of Distinction

A Messianic Devotional Study of the Jewish Holidays

Shavuot

Shavuot is the glorious, late spring holiday that falls on Sivan 6th and 7th, seven weeks after Passover when the wheat harvest begins and the firstfruits of the seven species and loaves of bread were presented in the Temple. It is also the time when the giving of the Torah is joyfully remembered and celebrated.

Read: Book of Ruth

Hebrew Word: Shavuot – is the Hebrew plural form of the word shavua, meaning “week.” From Passover or firstfruits, the high priest counted 50 days or seven weeks to the wheat harvest. The fiftieth day became Shavuot or Pentecost (Lev 23:15, 16, 21).

Devotional Thought

“So He is our peace. In His body, He has made Jewish and non-Jewish people one by breaking down the wall of hostility that kept them apart (Eph 2:14 NCV).”

The backdrop for Shavuot is the ending of the grain harvest, which is wheat. It begins seven weeks earlier during Passover with the barley ingathering. At the time of the wheat harvest, the firstfruits of the seven species in Israel were gathered and taken to the temple as an offering (Deut 8:8). In ancient times, this was a season of great rejoicing (Jer 5:24; Deut 16:9-11). When the temple existed, an offering of two loaves of bread were baked from the wheat harvest and offered in the temple as well.

During this season, Jewish people remember and celebrate the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. As Messianic believers, along with honoring the cycle of the agricultural days in Israel, we also remember that the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the disciples and others gathered in the Upper Room with visible signs, power, and wonders. It was on that day that the Holy Spirit was given and the body of Messiah or the Church was born.

It is customary to read the book of Ruth during Shavuot since it is the celebration of the ending of the grain harvest. The compelling story begins in Moab as three widows start their journey to Israel. Naomi, an exile in Moab and a Jewess on her way home, decided to return to her roots after she lost her husband and two sons. Orpah and Ruth, her two daughters-in-law, left with her in high hopes of starting a new life, away from the mourning and difficulties of their previous lives.

Scripture tells us that Naomi urged both women to stay in Moab. No doubt she reasoned that she could not from her own body provide sons for them to marry. And yet in Naomi’s heart of hearts, she must have known that those grieving young widows carried within their wombs the seeds of the future of their family lineage. Orpah remained in Moab, but Ruth left homeland and comfort for the unknown because of her loyal commitment to her mother-in-law and her people.

Eventually Ruth married a near relative from the lineage of Naomi. The inclusion of a Gentile in this beautiful story of redemption is remarkable! Their love story traces the lineage of Boaz and Ruth to Obadiah and on to King David and ultimately Yeshua.

This book is appropriately remembered during Shavuot–the wheat harvest. We who believe remember and honor this season as the time when the Holy Spirit was poured out on those who waited in the Upper Room. The body of Messiah was born that day with mostly Jewish believers in Yeshua; but after the outpouring of the Spirit, more and more early Gentile followers of Yeshua were added to the Church.

Ephesians 2:14 tells us that God has broken down the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile. As the prophetic picture of Ruth and Boaz in the Old Covenant, today we have become one as living stones that point to the One True Messiah and Savior of the world.

What will speak to the world more right now than Jew and Gentile loving each other? What sign would be more powerful than Arabs and Jews, ancient arch enemies, becoming one? Ephesians truthfully states that He is our peace. There is no peace in the Middle East or elsewhere without the true peace that only God can bring.

As we work the fields of harvest around us and in other countries, we bring all the grain in that is good and worthy — both Jew and Gentile. Revelation tells us that every tongue and tribe will stand before the Lamb on that day and give Him honor.

Prayer: I thank you, Yeshua, for the season of Shavuot, when we remember the wheat harvest or the time to gather souls for your kingdom. Thank you for the prophetic picture of Ruth and Boaz coming together in covenant as a Jew and Gentile. Praise your name that you have made us all worthy by your blood and crushed the wall of hostility between us.

Shavuot Celebrations and Traditions: Some religious Jews stay up all night reading the Torah as this holiday commemorates the receiving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. The book of Ruth is also read because it took place during the beginning of the barley harvest. In Jewish homes today during Shavuot, many enjoy eating milk products like cheesecakes or special cheeses. Some think this tradition originated from Song of Songs 4:11: “Milk and honey are under your tongue,” referring to the sweetness of the Torah as we partake.

You may be surprised to find out; although they are a group who gives more time in education than any other in the history of humankind, they do not spend much time or place much value in studying or learning the Jewish Bible or Torah, also called the Pentateuch or the first five books of the Bible. Most of their time is used in studying the Talmud or Mishnah. These are the rabbinical writings and interpretations of their Bible. These writings and practices are highly esteemed and equal to scripture in their eyes.

In Israel, they are 700,000 plus strong and growing since they have large families of six or seven children or more. Less than half ultra-Orthodox Jewish women work outside the home and even less men. Some receive financial aid that enables them to spend their time in study.

Usually, they live in poverty and rarely do they send their young adults to serve in the Israeli army. They receive exemptions, however, this is changing  today. There are some among them who sincerely desire to serve. Because of these things, secular Israel is not overly fond of the extreme, let’s say fanatical, side of their family.

Sometimes, Christians, especially when they first arrive in Israel or become aware of their Jewish roots begin to idealize them. Thinking they have some mystical connection or deeper revelation of God that has not been revealed to Gentiles. These thoughts can lead into grave deception.

They, like all humankind, must reckon with Yeshua. He is the stone which the builders rejected. His own did not recognize or want Him. They went a different way; and after the destruction of the Temple and the dispersion, some of them grew into the sects of ultra-Orthodox Judaism that exist today — vehemently against belief in Jesus or Yeshua. Although, Judaism will tolerate a Jew who turns to Buddha, existentialism, Hare Krishna, education, secularism, even atheism, they will not accept one as a Jew still if he turns to Yeshua as Messiah. Some count family members who believe in Him as dead.

In reality a Jew becomes more of a Jew when the scales fall from eyes and he begins to see Him as the long-awaited One who was a Jew among Jews and brought light and salvation into the world as promised and prophesied by Jewish prophets.

Psalm 118 foretells of the day when the Messiah becomes that stone which the builders reject and is tossed aside. During Shavuot or Pentecost and the falling of the fire of the Holy Spirit upon those who gathered after the resurrection of Jesus in the upper room, Peter calls Jesus or Yeshua that very stone.

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is

¹² Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:8-12).

Whether Jewish or non-Jewish, each must deal with the question of who is Jesus or Yeshua. Either you fall, pleading for mercy, on the stone in your pathway or let it fall on you.

I wrote this poem contemplating these things.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein*

Onlooker

With prayer shawl and phylactery

ultra-Orthodox Jew

appears odd to unlearned onlooker

like me. Unchangeable

trivialities he esteems

holy with trembling fear.

Anchored by covenant,

every jot and tittle line his face,

predict his course.

Black silhouette looms,

a phantom of grace,

stark against post-modern culture.

Mouthpiece to the nations or

laughing-stock chiseled in stone?

Fixed. Prevailing

above societies’ substandard pace.

His life by law, like a shadow at dusk,

elongates retribution’s foretaste.

So rare his dedication, I stare gaping

floundering foundationless

without roots. Envious for a second,

yet rescued, grafted in, and indebted –

the commonwealth of Israel is mine

by a paid price.

Both of us have stumbled, both

blocked by a common Cornerstone.

Equalized by need.

Two groups. One.

Stones from a broken partition

rest in rubble at our feet.

Separation cancelled.

Cleaving or crushing,

the bloodstained Cornerstone

triumphs.

© Bonnie Saul Wilks

all right reserved

* Photo credit: Wikipedia, ultra-Orthodox Jews

In this day and age of rising Holocaust denial, a good dose of reality about that shameful and horrendous time in history is in order. Even for those who are not swept into the lies propagated today by anti-Semites that the Holocaust never happened, still a trip to a memorial or to the actual remains of a concentration camp is life changing and sobering. Sobering is a not strong enough. Every person in the world will benefit from a glimpse into that dark world. A glimpse is just enough.

There are several places in the states and globally that have good museums that house testimonies, artifacts, photos, journals, documentation, poetry, and art pieces from the concentration camps where 6 million Jews were slaughtered with the utmost precision and methodology.

Yad VaShem in Jerusalem is one of the largest and most compelling. It stands as Israel’s official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The name in Hebrew means literally “memorial and name,” and is derived from a scripture from the Bible: “And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name (Yad Vashem) that shall not be cut off.” It is the second most visited place in Israel exceeded only by the Western Wall.

Approximately 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered during the Holocaust; so appropriately, there is also a special memorial to them. It is deeply touching — dug from the underground, creating a cavern that is filled with candles and mirrors  illuminating the remembered souls of the dead by candlelight. All the tiny candle reflections are overwhelming.

According to Jewish tradition, candles are lit to remember and honor the dead. In the background, the names, ages, and countries of origin of the children are read aloud as you pass through. Every time I visit, I am deeply shaken and saddened. It takes me awhile to shake it off.

It is good though to pause and honor these. We cannot change things; but we can stop with reverence, and we can resolve never to let it happen again.

Below you will find two short poems I wrote concerning the Holocaust in general and the children’s memorial.

It is important for me also to say that pausing to remember the dead of the Holocaust one must guard her heart not to allow ill-feelings of unforgiveness or hatred toward the German nation or any person, including Hitler, to arise or grow. Unforgiveness will lead us down the same pathway of anger to the point of marginalization, racial prejudice, and ultimately murder.

Some from the German nation have repented publicly and privately to the Jewish people and the world. Some have led this march toward healing and cleansing by stellar examples of going low and reaching out humble hands in asking forgiveness.

One of the most outstanding groups to bring about reconciliation between nations has been the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary located in Darmstadt, Germany. It was founded after WWII by Basilia Schlink for the purpose of making amends on a very deep and personal level. And their work continues today, quite successfully. Many others have followed in their footsteps to heal the scars.

The New Covenant tells us that we are to remember the Lord’s death until He comes. King Solomon tells us there is a time for everything, even a time to remember the dead. I believe both strength and compassion are deposited in our spirits when we pause to remember and honor the Lord’s suffering and death.

Likewise, there is a significant deposit in our souls, minds, and hearts when we remember and honor the deaths of unjust victims, family, and/or friends. That is why I feel a visit to the Holocaust museum or a grave site or any place that catalogs this event through history, photos, and memorabilia is significant.

Holocaust Lesson

Black bars and spikes of torture,

shadowy Nazi beast loomed

from death’s dark pit.

Millions of yellow stars

snuffed by hate.

Prejudice extinguished life’s

Fragile candle flames.

What do I learn

from heinous Holocaust?

Hate’s retaliation cancels

by a coin’s two-sided empathy and wisdom.

Incomprehensible loss

releases compassion’s tear,

but equally horrifying

the coin’s other side:

the mirrored remembrance

reflects my face.

I, a son of Adam,

a stoking Nazi could be,

and guilty as he

except by great grace.

© Bonnie Saul Wilks

all rights reserved

Flickering Holocaust Memory

Names of the slaughtered children:

“Joseph, Meir, Hannah, and Rose,”

echo from Yad VaShem’s candlelights.

Only after three years

the recorded names will repeat.

Millions of lights extinguished,

youth’s brimming cup spilled out,

in death’s untimely childhood defeat.

Candle flames flicker in

Holocaust memory.

For the children

eyes well with tears.

Hate grips and twists

the heart savage;

beware lest history repeat

the tragic death lairs.

© Bonnie Saul Wilks

all rights reserved

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There’s a town crier on every corner of the world’s stage—animated, influential, convincing—demanding attention. In this age of high-tech communication, competition is fierce. Occasionally, these sounds drowned out my own voice—even more frustrating—my heart.

With so many voices, sometimes, I don’t feel heard. Since I want family and friends—or occasionally anyone who will listen—to know my thoughts, I speak louder, more forcefully.

There are a lot of town criers on and around Mt. Zion, and I think they are just like me — they get louder and more forceful when they feel they aren’t being heard.

When we stay in Jerusalem a couple times each year, we hear their messages day and night echoing over the Hinnom Valley, from the Mt. of Olives and Zion, and the Arab villages of Silwan and Abu Tor as well.

The apartment we stay in is directly across from Mt. Zion. Wow—Mt. Zion! That’s what I think every morning when I open the shutters. I sit on the veranda and drink morning coffee and pinch myself.

King David called Mt. Zion the perfection of beauty where the presence of God of dwells. He also wrote that God loves the gates of Zion and has chosen it above all places. It is from there that the King of kings will rule the nations. Imagine… Zion is the joy of the whole earth… the place where God’s fire burns.

To see this place in real life may be a disappointment with natural eyes. Mt. Zion is lackluster and really, only a hill. The slops descending into the Hinnom Valley are arid and brown with a few roughed dirt roads that wind around to the top. The Pope’s Way (built after Pope Paul VI’s visit in 1964) is close to the peak, and a few ancient olives trees are scattered throughout. Hotels, parks, restaurants, an amphitheater, and cinema dot the landscape at various levels.

It is a place of historic significance and a blessed hope to the Jew and Christian. Before Jerusalem was united in 1967, King David’s tomb was the most revered place to pray, because Jews could not get to the Western Wall. Christians have honored its geography and symbolic meanings for centuries.

Perched on top of Mt. Zion are the Dormition Abbey, King David’s tomb, the grave site of Oskar Schindler, and the Room of the Last Supper—each claiming its place as “king of the mountain.” But no owns Mt. Zion. It belongs to those who embrace its meaning and worship its Creator.

Sound in this area resonates without microphones or amplifiers. At night, the town criers of Mt. Zion pump music into the air with classical and pop concerts, weddings, bar- and bat-mitzvahs, festivals, or parties—occasionally several at once. Often all the sounds compete.

During the day, there are different sounds—the routine noises from the people who live here. The Dormition Abbey rings its bells every few hours during daylight. Both the close-by Arab villages broadcast Islamic prayers from the minarets at various intervals. During Ramadan, the loud beating of drums with eerie chants echo through the valley and up the mountain at three in the morning, waking the sleep of Muslims, Christians, and Jews, even atheists are aroused and deprived of sleep during the sound of this seasonal call.

We hear the music and booms of fireworks from nearby Arab weddings. Sirens wail through the valley twenty minutes before the Sabbath, a warning for all Orthodox Jews to return home. They also signal times of memorial or impending danger.

Packs of starving dogs run wild on the hills and valley—snarling, barking, and howling—claiming the territory as their own. Their deprivation drives them to meanness, wayward beasts suffering from a dreadful lack of human kindness, food, and water.

The sounds of Zion today are generated from the town criers of varied roots and religions, cultures with predisposed attitudes of entitlement expressing their desires for pleasure, religious rectitude, traditions, or justice. Many are in pain and much of the noise is about suffering and injustice. And more importantly, a human face with a yearning heart is behind each cry.

Zion’s town criers demands conglomerate into chaotic clamor—the restless din of a suffering city. A spinning society, seemingly abandoned, reduced to screeching into the air, feeling their way along the rough walls of a dark room called the complexities of modern Israel. Most just long to be heard.

There is a unique sound arising in quiet and loud tones—through prayer, praise, and intercessions of a 24-hour house of prayer—down the road from us. Their voices may not be the loudest or the most flamboyant; but they are constant, interceding for the peace of Jerusalem and the welfare of Israel. Perhaps they are the most significant.

They fulfill Jeremiah 31:6: There will be a day when watchmen cry out on the hills of Ephraim, “Come, let us go up to Zion, to the LORD our God.”

Once the people of Israel knew the songs of Zion (Psalm 137:3), but I believe the hills will sing again. And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away (Isaiah. 35:10).

My husband and I add our voices to the sounds of Zion’s town criers through prayer, intercession, and reaching out to those around us. We pray that the humanity, living in the community we share, will hear and respond.

For Zion’s sake, we cannot keep silent. Not until Jerusalem is a praise—not a clamoring, chaotic din—but a praise in all the earth.

I was afraid of them as a kid and am curiouser and curiouser at their popularity now. I think it is part interest in the supernatural and part curiosity about the afterlife. There is also something in humankind that likes the bizarre, the macabre, the weird.

But in all seriousness, everyday while in Israel, I see people who look like zombies on the streets. Jewish people who move like zombies and stare back at you with empty, hollowed eyes. It is possible to see the flame of hope has been stamped out. These have been driven around the world, hated, persecuted, and killed unjustly. They are world’s scapegoat and still they are loathed and pushed to the edge of extinction, even in their own homeland.

I am compassionate when I see this kind of zombie-like hopelessness. I know the scars are deep but can heal.

This morning I reread Ezekiel 37:1-14 about the dry bones coming to life. I believe this speaks of the state of Israel being born, but there is also another meaning to the metaphorical symbol. That is the spiritual resurrection of the dead into new life through their long-awaited Messiah, Yeshua.

I wrote this poem from that passage.

Dry Bones Dancing

“But our bones are dried and hollowed, and hope is shriveled in the land of inheritance.”

“Here the God of our fathers—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—cut covenant, made promises. Here we are heavy packed already into graves and buried under the ancient rubble.”

A gentle breeze stirred the dust and blew it away. Then an icy north wind aroused and breathed upon the barren land and into the buried dead.

Next the east and west sent a whirlwind that lifted the shackles of persecution, the stains of rebellion and spiraled it around and around in circles overhead driving it into the core of the earth.

Then hot desert winds howled until the sky was thick with sand.

The wind settled, and silence steeped the silver and gold of eternal purpose.

One by one the dry bones lifted heads and arms in thirst, and they drank and desired to live.

The valley grew green and cool, and the sky dark. Thunder clapped and lightening lit the heavens as noonday. Rains poured into the parched, scorched earth. Floods rose and washed and rose and washed.

I heard dry bones crack and stumble, crack and rise. Blood and water from the mountain scrubbed the bones clean, and they gleamed in the rain and sunshine.

Empty trenches of the once dead closed and vineyards covered the scar.

Then I saw the broken forms kneel at the feet of one they pierced.

I saw dead bones, dry bones dance, dance on ancient stones, dance into living stones, dance into a terrible army, fierce with sinew, muscle, and flesh. They marched forward, forged with forgiveness, forgiveness and love in every step.

©Bonnie Saul Wilks

Jerusalem, Israel May 17, 2012

“Circle Zion, take her measure, count her fortress peaks, gaze long at her sloping bulwark, climb her citadel heights—then you can tell the next generation detail by detail the story of God, our God forever, who guides us till the end of time” (Psalm 48: 12-14, The Message).

Announcing Life

The nooks and crannies

between and around

the Holy City’s

ancient stones

are packed with

soil, sprinkled with

seeds, and watered

by hopeful, eternal

hearts. Once empty

spaces producing

color, and every

crevice announcing,

life,

“Life from the dead.”

© Bonnie Saul Wilks

all rights reserved

Jerusalem, Israel

May 14, 2012

Jesus will return someday, and we’ll meet Him in the air. At that moment in the twinkling of an eye when we are changed, all the wood, hay, and stubble of life will burn away; and only the eternal will remain. And this is the standard by which we measure priorities as we live day by day.

If you are a Facebook or Twitter user, you have probably posted a comment or status update and later regretted it at least once. Awww, come on! Yes, you have!

The truth is: I have done it more than once. Usually, I am trying to be funny or clever or a smarty pants, and later I realize the words that I have left behind for half of the known world to read again and again did nothing for anybody or even worse, maybe did some harm.

At the time, I was glad for the delete option; and I as I deleted, I may have been praying that my actions in pressing “share” didn’t do much harm. In a few cases, I have actually sent private messages to individuals to make sure I was properly understood.

I remember for one solid week, I came back to Facebook almost daily and deleted things. I was on a royal roll of inserting my foot into my mouth, and again so happy for the delete option. I remember taking mental inventory and asking myself, “Hey what’s going on here, Bonnie? You are a needy mess!”

I have occasionally read things from others that my eyes blinked in disbelief over, and my brain was hardly able to absorb that my “friend” had posted something like that about me, others, or her/himself.  And I know you have experienced the same thing.

Sooo… I know I am not alone here. Everyone using Facebook or Twitter or any consistent blogger has made a blooper or two at some time or read a blooper or two.

I did a little research about the subject and discovered a very interesting article titled:

“I regretted the minute I pressed share:”

A Qualitative Study of Regrets on Facebook.”

It was complied by a number of educators who conducted the study on nearly 600 Facebook users. You can read the whole article here. I think you will find it fascinating.

Bottom line, it seems there are a lot of people who share things they regret later. Here are their findings:

“Our research reveals several possible causes of why users make posts that they later regret:

(1) they want to be perceived in favorable ways,

(2) they do not think about their reason for posting or the consequences of their posts,

(3) they misjudge the culture and norms within their social circles,

(4) they are in a “hot” state of high emotion when posting, or under the influence of drugs or alcohol,

(5) their postings are seen by an unintended audience,

(6) they do not foresee how their posts could be perceived by people within their intended audience, and

(7) they misunderstand or misuse the Facebook platform.

Some reported incidents had serious repercussions, such as breaking up relationships or job losses.”

As I completed the research paper, it became evident that most of the Facebook users interviewed were not believers. Their regrets could be categorized above but their actions were different from believers. They regretted lying or revealing secrets to others through Facebook, confessing things on Facebook they did while drunk or high or angry, and  sexual escapades, etc. They also confessed to breaking up relationships, separating friends, losing friends, or losing jobs or job possibilities because of things they posted on Facebook.

Wow! These things are expected of those who walk in darkness, as believers how does this apply to us?

Since most of my “friends” on Facebook are believers, I don’t find these kinds of things in my general status feed daily. But I do find things people should not have posted, and occasionally I am guilty as well.

Now, with that said. I am a big social media fan. I think it is a powerful tool for communication with family and friends. More often that not, I have drawn closer to someone because I struck up a conversation with someone on Facebook or commented on their photos or thoughts for the day. I can think of at least two dozen people or more that I keep in touch with on FB, and it has improved and strengthen our relationships.

Each year as my birthday passes, I am deeply encouraged and feel really loved when I read my birthday greetings. I am always taken back, and I have been very blessed to have such great family members or friends in my life. Those little messages of remembrances and love go deep.

I also think Facebook is a powerful tool for edifying the body. I know many people dislike it when people post food or  famous quotes, etc. But I  don’t. I really let the words of others lift my soul. And I am blessed when I see other people enjoying life by having a great meal.

I think it it better to “hide” someone’s posts if you don’t like their status reports, their quotes or photos of food rather than harp on the dos and don’ts of Facebook users. People’s likes and dislikes are as different as hot dogs and sushi in taste and appeal. But no one needs to police. Live and let live on Facebook, that is as long as things are edifying.

The more I think about the power of Facebook to encourage and bring healing and salvation to others, the more charged I get. I am not talking about being hyper spiritual and writing only scriptures all the time in your status updates. But I am talking about really blessing and encouraging when your heart is moved as you read. Telling people they have done well or how they bless you or that you love or need them in some way. That they are accomplishing much in their life, etc. You know when to say an encouraging word to other. Why not use Facebook to do it, especially if you think it? This kind of posting will change lives.

I think the two areas I have slipped the most in is trying to be funny or cool or reacting from something someone else posted. This scripture is so meaningful to me as I seek to renew my eternal purposes for social media:

You say, “Everything is permitted.” But not everything is good for us. Again you say, “Everything is permitted.” But not everything builds us up. We should not look out for our own interests. Instead, we should look out for the interests of others (I Corinthians 10:23-24).

Everything is permitted, but is it constructive? Will it encourage or bless?

It’s good to remember a few things as you post: Friends and family of different beliefs or levels of belief will be reading. Whatever you say may cause them to stumble or deter them in some way.

Here are some guidelines: Be real without offense. Be honest without gross, unnecessary details. Really, most people don’t want the details. Be funny if it comes naturally. Don’t try to win any awards for the funniest, cleverest, or most spiritual posts. Just communicate your heart or mind, reach out, think about edifying and building others up rather than making statements about yourself, trying to be cool or clever. Bottom line: think of blessing others more than making yourself look great.

God is FOR using all kinds of communication forms to further His kingdom. He’s not opposed to any of it. He doesn’t consider it of the world or too low or too material, as long as we glorify Him and edify others at all times.

In fact, if Jesus were to post something today, I think He would say something like:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:31-32).

I am going to ask myself before I make a comment or tweet or post a status update, “I am loving God without all my heart? Am I loving my neighbor as myself?”

And when in doubt, don’t press share.

I’m for turning over a new purpose on Facebook. How about you?

Jerusalem at night.

Speechless

Speechless the sterling

stars sparkle from

the velvety midnight blue.

Speechless the moon

burns a silver circle into

the dark sky. Speechless the city

casts its light randomly

into the night,

announcing safe harbor

to the weary soul seeking

home. Silently I watch

with reverence, feeling

small yet significant

in all of this. My

heart fills with

thought, my lips

with speech, my

pen moves in praise.

© Bonnie Saul Wilks

all rights reserved

Jerusalem, Israel, May 13, 2012