12 Weeks

On Saturday, October 20, 2018, God again inspired me to book a trip to Israel. I ended up picking January 14-28 as my departure dates from New Zealand and Israel. As it turned out, that is exactly 2 years and 7 months from the last trip that I went on in June 2016 (June 14-28).

I wrote the entire itinerary on this page: Israel 2019

Although I still didn't have the money to go on this trip, I have since realised that it is not always about going on the trip, it is about the story that God creates around the idea of going!

Over the course of the next 12 weeks, God inspired me with places to visit, places to stay, and towns to stay in. There were exactly 12 weeks and 2 days from the time that He inspired me to book the trip to Israel, to the time that I would depart.

With only two days left until my proposed departure date on Saturday, January 12, 2019, I decided to look up what the weekly Torah portion was on the date that God inspired me to go to Israel. I did this because I realised that it was the Sabbath day on the day that God had inspired me to go, and I thought there could be a message behind that.

It turned out there was!

On Saturday, October 20, 2018, the weekly Torah portion (Jews read the first five books of the Hebrew Bible in weekly portions throughout the year) was called "Parashat Lech-Lecha", which is the Hebrew word for "Go". It is the first significant word in the Torah portion that starts with Genesis 12:1. Here is the exact quote:

"Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:"

This was an amazing day for God to inspire me with the idea to go to Israel, given that the weekly Torah portion on that day referred to Abraham leaving his own country to go to the land of Israel that God would give him and his descendants! He was the father of Israel, and the Arabs. So it was as if God was telling me to "get out of my country and go to Israel that I will show you!" Amazingly, I discovered this Torah portion on the same date as the number of the verse exactly 12 weeks later! i.e. Genesis 12:1 on 12/1 (January 12, 2019)

The fact that I currently live with my father made the quote doubly apt! "Get thee...from thy father's house".

These Torah portions fall on a different date each year, so the fact that God inspired me to book the trip on October 20, 2018, and exactly 12 weeks later on January 12, 2019 I discovered the original Torah portion that had the same number as that date, was quite remarkable! It just goes to show you how God can divinely align you into certain events without you having any prior knowledge of it!

The final part of this story is that the weekly Torah portion on January 12, 2019 is called "Parashat Bo", which also means "go" in the Hebrew language! So there are two Torah portions separated by exactly 12 weeks apart that both are named by the Hebrew word for "go". It just so happens that the first one last year also corresponded with the day that God inspired me to book another trip to Israel!

Though I may not go on this trip, I look at it as a way for God to prove that He is behind something, even though you may not get the outcome you might expect! It doesn't mean that God wasn't behind something, it just means that He had a different purpose in mind.

Edit: January 31, 2019: The day after this trip was due to arrive back, I discovered another interesting sign that God had left on this planned trip!

I realised that if I add up the days that I was due to spend in Israel, together with the 70 days from the previous trips, it added up to exactly 84 days or 12 weeks!

In my book I wrote about the importance of the number 12 to Israel in the Bible, and how there were 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles of Jesus Christ, and 144,000 saints made up of 12,000 people from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. This again seems to be 'proof' that God was behind these trips, and this is how He decided to leave His fingerprints on them!

Nearly a year earlier, on the trip marked by "70 Years", God gave me 12 locations to visit, and the most important one was given to me exactly 12 weeks to the day from the first one! So God introduced the number 12 into this story in the last trip, and backed it up with this one.

Here now is the updated table with the latest trip added:

Edit: March 18, 2019: Six weeks after this trip was due to get back, on March 17, 2019 (St. Patrick's Day), God put the location of "Yardenit" in my head. Yardenit is a location on the Jordan River just south of the Sea of Galilee. It commemorates the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, although it is not considered the authentic location of his baptism. That honour belongs to Qasr el Yahud, not far from Jericho.

My immediate thoughts were, perhaps God wants me to get baptised at Yardenit in the Jordan River in Israel. Despite becoming a Christian more than twenty years ago, I still have not been baptised! I just haven't got around to it yet!

I still didn't have the money to go, so whether I actually go or not is another story!

Nonetheless, I decided to pick out some dates for another potential trip to Israel. I ended up choosing June 13-26, departing New Zealand and Israel on those dates.

Two hours later, I was doing some mental arithmetic in my head, and worked out that it was 88 days from today's date until my departure date on June 13. But then I discovered something interesting!

The Feast of Weeks, Shavuot and Pentecost all fall on the 9th of June, 2019 - exactly 12 weeks from today's date!

So that now makes four times within the last 12 months that God has used the time period of '12 weeks' to leave a sign on these trips to Israel! What's more is that the first time it was used, it was done to mark the end of a 50-day period that Jews are told to count between the Feast of First Fruits and the Feast of Weeks, fifty days later!

I also see that my departure date comes exactly 12 weeks to the day from the Jewish holiday of "Purim" on March 21, 2019.

So it appears to me that God just wanted to back-up and prove that this was a sign from God!

Interestingly, God got me to put my booking for Tiberias on the last two days of the trip - the closest location to Yardenit on the Jordan River. I found that slightly unusual, because I would normally visit Tiberias/the Sea of Galilee near the middle of any trip, after leaving Jerusalem and heading north. Nonetheless, I booked two nights in Tiberias for the 24th and 25th of June. That would mean that were I to be baptised, it would either be on the 24th or 25th of June, as I would be leaving Israel the next day.

Interestingly, I discovered that the 24th of June, besides being the day that my little brother Tim was buried exactly 10 years ago to the day, is also "St. Jean Baptiste Day" in Canada and other parts of the world. This day celebrates the birth of St. John the Baptist who baptised Jesus in the Jordan River! So I found that quite an interesting juxtaposition of dates that I could have been baptised on! Incidentally, the day I would land in Israel is also ten years to the day that my younger brother Tim was killed in an accident in Michigan on June 14, and he was buried ten days later on June 24, 2009.

Edit: May 14, 2019:

An interesting event occurred exactly one month to the day that my next trip to Israel is due to depart on June 13.

At about 8 P.M. on May 13, one day before Israel's 71st anniversary on May 14, I was scrolling through the trending stories on the Google App, and noticed one about Israel Folau - an Australian rugby player who ran afoul of the Australian rugby football union for posting comments about hell on Instagram. He now looks set to lose his playing career in Australia over it. In the article it says that God spoke to him, and that's what led him to make his post on Instagram. Here is the exact article: 'God Spoke to Me'

What was interesting to me was the date that he made the post to Instagram. April 10, 2019. April 10 for me is an important date! It was the day that God first inspired me to visit Israel for the first time back in 2010! Exactly 7 weeks later from that date on May 29, 2010, I departed for Israel for the first time. This led to a series of trips that God would mark with the number seven. I didn't know that it was exactly 7 weeks to the day that God gave me the idea to visit Israel for the first time, to the day I departed, and only discovered it two-and-a-half years later!

Furthermore, I later discovered that I was exactly 33 years and 33 days old on the day that God inspired me to visit Israel for the first time - the approximate age that Jesus was when He died on the cross. I would also later discover, eight years later, that April 10 was the suggested date that Jesus was crucified on the cross in Jerusalem! So, all those things conspiring to land on April 10, made it an important date for me!

That's why, when I saw that Israel Folau had made his post on April 10 that got him into trouble, I was intrigued! Interestingly, Israel itself which was formed on November 29, 1947, was passed with 33 votes on the 333rd day of the year! All those things seem more than a passing coincidence.

However, that was not the end of the story. Later that night, on May 13, 2019, I suddenly realised that it was exactly 33 days from April 10 to today's date! The day that I discovered and read the article! This all happening exactly one month to the day to my next proposed trip to Israel!

I decided to reach out to Israel Folau and share this story with him, however, he may or may not see it. (End of Edit)

Note: Israel Folau's rugby contract was officially terminated by Rugby Australia on May 20, 40 days after his post to Instagram on April 10. On December 4, 2019, he agreed to a confidential out-of-court settlement with Rugby Australia, reported to be as much as AU$8 million. He had been seeking AU$14 million in compensation for wrongful termination of his contract based on religion.

Edit: June 14, 2019:

Once again, God did not provide the money for me to go on this trip! However, I don't think that was an accident! He didn't want me to go, nor ever intended for me to go, it was all about the story that He created around the idea of going!

Why do I say this? Because at exactly 1:43 PM yesterday, on June 13, eight minutes after my first flight was due to depart, I suddenly started sending out emails to people to ask them to read and write a review of my book! Prior to this, I had not done so, at least, not on a wide-spread scale. So it was interesting to me that after this flight had departed, God prompted me to start sending out these emails to multiple people. So it is clear to me that God did not want me to go, nor did He want anyone else to help me to get there either.

It was all about the story that He created around the idea of going - simply to prove that He was the inspiration behind the trip!

Amazingly, my flight departed on the very minute that I sent out my first email, according to FlightStats:

By Steve Moxham
January 12, 2019

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