Daily Devotionals

It is he who puts down one and lifts up another (Psalms 75:7 [8]).

It was 1896, and Theodor Herzl, the assimilated Jewish journalist who was to become the "father of modern Zionism," had recently published a book on the establishment of a Jewish state. One day, a very excited man with the long gray beard of a prophet came charging into the room of an astonished Herzl, proclaiming that he was there to help him in his mission. Though Herzl was initially skeptical, this Gentile evangelical minister, William Henry Hechler, proved true to his declaration. He not only promoted Herzl's vision; he stood by him with prayer and encouragement until Herzl's death in 1904, and remained a great friend to the Zionist movement until his own death in 1931.

We often question the divine appointment of people because they don't fit our preconceptions. However, God's ways and thoughts are higher than ours. It may seem unlikely that God would choose a non-religious Jew to lay the groundwork for fulfilling his scriptural promises. Yet, it's just as odd to the natural mind that encouragement for such a project would come from a chaplain of the Vienna British Embassy rather than from the Orthodox Jewish world. Not only is God sovereign in his choices, he delights in confounding the wisdom of the world's wise.

...cease to question God's choices, or to doubt his wisdom concerning who he calls to do his work.

MM