As I sit in my hotel room, preparing to pack and leave for Europe and our first-ever Exploring Ezeki

As I sit in my hotel room, preparing to pack and leave for Europe and our first-ever Exploring Ezekiel Conference, I find myself thinking about the world Israel’s prophets lived in.

Our world feels upside down. Surely, there were days when theirs did too.

What gives me hope today is what gave them hope then: we serve the God of restoration. He keeps a remnant, remains faithful to the people He has chosen, and fulfills His promises even when the world seems to be falling apart.

I think of Jeremiah. He sent these words to his people in Babylon before Jerusalem and the temple fell:

“For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” — Jeremiah 29:10–11, NKJV

You know these verses. But have you stopped to consider to whom they were given, and when? Some of Jeremiah’s people were already in exile. The fall of Jerusalem is recorded ten chapters later, in Jeremiah 39. Yet before that terrible day, God had already promised to bring His people home.

And He did.

But Ezekiel spoke of a gathering far greater than the return from Babylon. God said He would gather His people from the nations, wherever they had gone, and bring them into their own land. He also said that Israel and Judah would become one nation, no longer divided into two kingdoms (Ezekiel 36:24; 37:21–22).

That is why I look at the Israel of today with wonder. After the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70, the devastation that followed in AD 135, and nearly 2,000 years of dispersion, Jewish people have returned from across the world. We live in our land as one nation, without the old division between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. I see in this the gathering Ezekiel foretold, even as we await the fullness of his vision, when Messiah Yeshua will reign over His people.

From my hotel window, I watch the entourages of world leaders traveling to and from the UN building. Many will use that platform to condemn Israel, even as our nation fights to protect its people under attack on multiple fronts. Yet I choose to remember the good word God gave my people more than 2,600 years ago.

As I write this, tears are running down my cheeks. Perhaps it is because I am alone here, missing my family and troubled by what I see around me. But these are tears of joy. I am a man who once wanted to end his life and now, through Messiah Yeshua, has life without end.

Through Him, Gentiles have also been grafted into the olive tree. The God of restoration has given all who belong to Him a future and a hope.

You may feel like part of a remnant in a world turned upside down. Remember the God who keeps His word. He has not forgotten His people, and He has not forgotten you.

Awaiting His Soon Return – Amir