 LAURA
MAGID MAWER
A strong
part of my identity is that I am a Jew. I think its true to say
there is much variety in what Jews believe, but there is stone-solid
consistency in what they don’t believe:
Jews don’t believe in Jesus!
So what
happened??
My friend Judi is Gentile and a believer in Jesus.
Through the years I watched her hold onto her faith as she went through
some very difficult times. She always had this peace that made no sense in
light of all I saw her go through. AND I wanted that peace.
 I mark the day after Thanksgiving 1995 as the day I became a confessed
believer in Jesus the Messiah. The Sunday before Thanksgiving, my
friend Patti invited me to hear a Jewish singer, Paul Wilbur. When we
got there I was surprised (and confused) - he was a believer in Jesus. I
thought him
a traitor to my Jewish people
– YET he was so bold in expressing his beliefs
that I envied him, and in my brokenness I felt drawn to surrendering to
Jesus. BUT I didn’t. Why? To me,
Jesus was just a non-Jewish, feel-good
myth.
On Tuesday evening of that same week I had a very disturbing
phone call. I hung up the phone and turned on the radio. How unusual
that I wasn’t able to tune into any radio station but one –
a station where Paul Wilbur was being interviewed! When the
interview was over, I wrote a letter to God.
I asked Him to show me the way. I told
God how
strong my will was to not believe in Jesus - I just wanted to
feel better.
 I spent that entire night reading all about Jesus. It surprised
me to learn from Jewish history books that the word Christ (such an
emotionally charged word to a Jew) came from the Greek and meant
Anointed One, or Messiah. The name Jesus came from
the Greek, but in English is Joshua and in Hebrew Yeshua.
Next I read a short book that spoke of
SIN.
If you had asked me, I
would have told you that I was a good person, not a sinner. YET as I read,
through the Spirit of God I could see that my sin was living separately from
God. I had lived my whole life counting on myself and
now God was calling me to count on Him. From reading
this book, I came to understand that to be one with God I had to be one with
Christ.
The next day Patti called and asked if I wanted to go to a Thanksgiving
church service. She was surprised at my “yes.” And who did I end up sitting next to in that packed house of
three thousand? – A Jewish Christian - and through conversation I
learned that his family attended my synagogue. I saw this as a sure sign
from God, and I was amazed and overjoyed to experience such a personal evidence of Him.
Later I was sitting in a coffee shop with Judi, sharing with her all the amazing things occurring.
Then a couple,
Michael and Mimi Finesilver, came up to our table excited to see Judi.
They hadn't seen her for two years and they
were both Jewish Christians! I knew that God had caused this
meeting to happen. That night I prayed with Michael,
confessing my separation from God and thanking Jesus for revealing
Himself to me. We all still agree that the Lord put us
together at that time and place to show me that Jesus is real.
And I am forever grateful.
That night, when I returned home, I looked up the Haftorah portion I
read for my Bat Mitzvah. It was from the book of Zechariah, and I was
amazed as I then reread some of the verses in English, which I had read
only in Hebrew twenty-four years earlier. Here are some of them:
“Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion...for lo I come, and I will dwell
in the midst of thee,
saith the Lord... And many nations shall be joined
to the Lord in that day and shall be my people...
and I will remove the
iniquity of that land in one day... Not by might, nor by power,
but by my
spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.”
(Zechariah 2:10-4:6)
Although Zion refers to the people of Jerusalem, when I read those
verses that night, I knew God was addressing me as His precious daughter
of Zion. And I was amazed that He had arranged for
me to read of the coming of Messiah twenty-some years before I would
come to know Him personally.
On the day I first came to Olive Tree Congregation, where I’ve now been
worshipping since that time, some of those same verses were quoted during the service. Again, I knew it was another loving sign from
the LORD confirming that He is real and personally with me.
So, this is my story. My prayer for you is that God will use it as a
blessing in your life.
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