A few years ago, I had the privilege of working for a potato processing and packing business. One of the MD's always used to refer to me as his "diamond geezer".

 

One day, a matter arose which resulted in me having to attend his office, so I took the opportunity of why he insisted on calling me his "diamond geezer". It was just a simple mis-understanding of the pronunciation of my surname. He pronounced it as Jewel, when in fact it is Duell.

 

Both words do have something in common, they both end in "el" which in Hebrew translates as God. Jew-el, obviously means precious to God, and as everyone knows the Jewish people are most definitely precious to our Father in Heaven. Whatever the anti-semitists might think or say.

 

Duell, in the Torah, (Pentateuch, Books of the Law of Moses) there is reference to a Deuel, which again in Hebrew means, "known of God".

OK, I cocede that the spelling is slightly different. However, what it constantly reminds me of is this. To "duel" is to combat between two people, or in this case two forces. The forces of God(Light) and the forces of the prince of darkness.

 

Brother, Sister, which force are you fighting for today?

 

May El Shadai, bless you and continue to bless you. Amen and Amen

 

During the confirmation process of this ministry, Almighty God promised me, "It won't be easy!", and as if to make a point He took me back to a village where I once lived, there, there resides a stone mason, Bill, the stone mason showed me some works which he had completed and they were works of art, and in my eyes they looked flawless. And the message at the time was this, "You are working with people with hearts of stone, you just have to keep chipping away, until they get the message."

 

On the Sabbath of 28th June, the point was reinforced, God used a starling to do it, we had just read some of the readings for the day, when we heard an almighty bang on the brick wall of our house, now we are used to collared doves crashing into the windows, but this was a completely different sound, so we had to investigate. It was a starling, and judging by the crash, it should never have survived the collision, indeed we thought it hadn't as it lay comotose on the roof of the Garden room. I went inside to get the steps to remove the starling from the roof, but returned to see him standing up (recovered) and a few minutes later he flew off, none the worse for his ordeal. The message this time was, "Yes, it will be like banging your head against a brick wall, but - you must not give up!"

 

If Almighty God has given you a job to do, never give up, and don't be afraid to ask for His help either.

 

God bless you, today, shalom.