Month: June 2025

Was it born in India or China? Some insist it originated in Persia. Either way, there is no debate about the meaning of the name in Persian: Checkmate means “the Shah (king, top leader) is dead.” Or literally: “remove the king”, “the king is stunned”, “an ambush for the king.”

How Does One Win the Game?

The game is over when one opponent is threatened by the other side’s (“check”), or unable to strike its king, block the threat with another piece, or escape anywhere else on the board. You can all draw the parallel to the modern version of Checkmate going on this week in modern Persia.

Here on earth

Mediating the news and events here is not my calling. There are so many channels that provide this data. You probably don’t need my 10 cents worth of that. But I do want to give you a small glimpse into my own life these days.

Before this war with Persia even started, I moved to my sister’s home in Modi’in, about half an hour from my home. Far enough to be away from my routine and slow down, yet close enough to run back and grab what I need or check on my plants. I didn’t feel like flying anywhere for vacation, but I needed to allow my soul and body to breathe and process. And anyway, things change at a drop of a hat here these days. So much is happening every hour, goodness!

I was planning on slow hikes up the gorgeous hill right around the corner, downloading my thoughts on God’s shoulders and into my computer, enjoying nice coffee shops in the mornings, that kind of stuff.

Until Friday, around 3 am

Our phones were all taken over by the Home Front Command, with a frightening and rather unusual alert. We were instructed to stay near safe zones and be prepared for the siren that might go off in the next 15-30 min.

We’re pretty much used to staying in these safe zones by now. The missiles regularly launched at us by the Houthis from Yemen kept this particular muscle well trained. We know where to run to. Safe rooms are stocked with water, a radio and batteries, chargers, snacks, torches- whatever is needed to stay there for a few hours. At this stage, our level of panic is relatively low. We’re tired, yet prepared.

Later on Friday morning I went shopping. The streets were empty and events were canceled all over the country (including the massive Pride Parade planned in Tel Aviv, thank God). But as soon as Home Front Command announced that the drone threat sent our way was removed, the cafés opened, and stores filled up with shoppers who wanted to prepare for Shabbat.

Israel’s Channel 14 is the most right-wing channel in the land. They have always been Netanyahu’s staunch supporters. Yet, I’ve never heard their commentators and hosts ascribing the events to God the way they have been doing since that morning. It is a big source of comfort for me in this unusual time. “Sing to the Lord, for He has done glorious things; let this be known in all the earth” (Is. 12:5). Go for it, channel 14!

That’s what’s happening here on earth.

A Divine Situation Room – what’s happening in heaven?

I don’t exactly know, but I would like to share what’s happening in the alleyways of my own heart when I seek God and try to connect to His.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been immersed in the Book of Isaiah. Many prophecies from this book are coming true before our very eyes, yet, I’m not reading it in search of fulfilled prophecies, but rather seeking a vocabulary I can turn into arrows to store in my prayer quiver. I read it verse by verse, chapter by chapter. Sometimes I pause for a while on a single verse, sometimes I go through several chapters at once.

Every time I come across a verse that describes the current state of things or what needs to transpire, I stop and declare it. I don’t plead, I hardly ask. I mostly declare. I put Isaiah’s lofty words into my mouth and soul, into my weariness and apathy and fears, and I launch them toward invisible targets. I do this with tears, mostly repenting for our national stubbornness and blindness, which has brought upon us God’s wrath and judgment.

I thank Him for the fulfillment of Isaiah 12 – that His anger will turn away and He will comfort us – and I declare that the people of Israel will begin to draw water with joy from the wells of salvation (v. 3), will call upon His name and exalt it (v. 4).

Or chapter 14. It speaks of the king of Babylon, but since everything said there has already been fulfilled concerning that evil empire, I feel confident to now declare it about the leadership of Iran.

Yesterday morning I reached verse 23 and just fell in love with it: “I will sweep it with the broom of destruction.” I grabbed a broom and started sweeping and proclaiming.

The broom of destruction – what a beautiful term. I can see God with a divine broom in His hand, sweeping away – beyond the ends of the earth – all those whose hearts are arrogant, all those who think they can sit above His throne. That’s one of His weapons! The fact that He signs this verse not as the God of Israel or the God of the nations, but as “the Lord of Hosts”, as the General – that says it all. I’m enlisting and continuing to sweep.

I do this out of complete faith that in doing so, I’m cooperating here on earth with what God is doing in these very days. Right now, the Middle East is a chessboard on which He is moving His pieces at an unimaginable pace and in unexpected directions. And I want to make sure I don’t get caught in a spiritual ambush that can paralyze me. I want to be sure that no one can declare “checkmate” on me.

I’m not talking about my personal life, but about that place within me that carries Israel like a widow who doesn’t recognize her husband, who insists on continuing to turn her back on Him. I repent every time Isaiah’s rich vocabulary reminds me of another area in which our people behave as if we are the hand moving the pieces on the board and not just one of the pieces.

Friends, brothers, sisters, co-heirs: I invite you to join me on this journey into the depths of Isaiah’s vocabulary. The IDF and Mossad agents may indeed excel in the precision and depth of their strikes, but these are not enough. They were not enough on October 7th, right? Our arm of flesh might be impressive, but it is only flesh, a piece on the board.

All of us – even you who are not in the Land – can enlist these days in the army of the Lord of Hosts. In the face of “the sound of a tumult on the mountains, like that of a great multitude! The sound of the uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathering together”, each of us can line up behind “the Lord of Hosts mustering the host for battle” (Is. 13:4). Even if you are “from a far country, from the end of the heavens”, you can serve as an instrument in the hand of “the Lord and the weapons of His indignation, to destroy the whole land” (verse 5).

Shall we broom together?

https://ornagrinman.com/2016/12/21/wounds-intercession-entreating-part-1/