“The Lord gives strength to His people; the Lord blesses His people with peace”
Psalm 29:11 (NIV)
Do you get the sense the world is spinning out of control? I know it feels that way to me. Every day a new crisis or reason for worry seems to spring out of nowhere.
That’s why I’m so thankful we know God is in control. He isn’t taken by surprise or overwhelmed by circumstances. Even when we are surprised or overwhelmed, the Psalm above says that He gives us strength and peace. I don’t know about you, but I can always use more of both.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed today, especially as we look at the news coming out of Israel, I encourage you to ask the Lord for strength and peace. Pray strength and peace for yourself, your family, friends, neighbors, region, and an extra measure for Israel and the Jewish people. God will hear you.
If you want more encouragement in these chaotic times, please take a look at our daily devotional series Hope In The Midst.
Now, let’s take a look at where God’s strength and peace are needed right now in Israel.
On Sunday, Sigal Sadetzky, the head of health services at the Health Ministry, told Israel’s parliament that the country is seeing the start of a second wave of the pandemic. Over the last month the government took steps to reopen the economy and roll back restrictions.
“We had a long period of more than two weeks with a calm of less than 20 infections a day, and it started to climb and climb, and now we are seeing close to 200 new sick people a day,” Sadetzky said, according to The Times of Israel.
“What characterizes the wave we are seeing now is that it’s across the country. We don’t really know how to identify at-risk groups,” she said.
Late last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israelis that the government will have to reimpose the lockdown if social distancing and other preventive measures aren’t practiced to avoid the spread of COVID-19.
"I have good news and not-so-good news. The good news is that our economy is picking up pace," Netanyahu said, according to Israel Hayom, an Israeli national newspaper.
"The not-so-good news is our community spread levels," he continued, referring to the recent increase of COVID-19 infections within Israel. "We are seeing the start of a climb, and the reproduction number [the time it takes for cases to multiply] is 10 days. If this continues, we will have to reintroduce the lockdown measures."
