Better late than never, am I right? It’s taken me longer than anticipated to write about my experience in Israel because it’s honestly taken me this long to process it all, and even still, when I reflect back, God keeps showing me more and more.
Walking in Jesus’ footsteps, standing where He healed, sitting where He taught, and looking at the place where He died – I was, and still am, quite speechless. To this day, me and my dad say it was a “perfect” trip from start to finish. Our travel guide, the group we went with (shout out to bus 12!), and the messages from Passion City’s pastors we heard along the way added impact beyond our wildest expectations.
Instead of cramming every detail of the week-long trip and many places we went in a single blog, I am going to write a few separate blogs about specific places we went along with the scriptures that are the backstory to each jaw-dropping destination we had the privilege of visiting (and some pictures I took along the way).
On the ten-hour plane ride to Tel Aviv, before we landed and right after I was told my luggage somehow didn’t make it on the plane (but that’s a story for another day), I wrote in my journal that I felt like God was going to show me more of who He is and see more of how big He is. Boy, did He do that and so much more…
In no particular order, first up is Mt. Precipice in Nazareth, the city where Jesus grew up in Galilee! Prior to the trip, as I thought about the experiences ahead of us, Nazareth was not top on the list of places I thought would impact me the most. Like always, God surprised me in the best way.
During the first three days of the trip, we stayed in Galilee, and at the end of the first day, we found ourselves on the top of Mt. precipice looking out at countless houses and businesses where only twenty houses used to stand during Jesus’ time on Earth.
Nazareth
In Luke chapter 4, shortly after Jesus was tested in the wilderness by the devil for forty days, He traveled to His hometown of Nazareth and read scripture from the book of Isaiah in the synagogue, as He usually did in each city He went. However, this time, His presence and proclamation that He was indeed the Messiah, the One who was sent from the Father to pay for the sins of both the Jews and the Gentiles, was not well-received by His own people:
“When they heard this, the people in the synagogue were furious. Jumping up, they mobbed him and forced him to the edge of the hill on which the town was built. They intended to push him over the cliff, but he passed right through the crowd and went on His way.”
(4:28-30, NLT)
As a glorious sunset filled the air around our group, it hit me I was on that very hill Jesus walked right through as threats to His safety and purpose for coming to Earth lost all power. His ministry here was far from easy and had no lack of opposition, yet He persisted. He kept going.
View from the top of the mountain
To quote lyrics from a classic Disney channel movie, “life’s a climb, but the view is great,” and full of God’s faithfulness to keep us climbing, I might add.
As I sat on Mt. Precipice thinking of all the things weighing against me and my family, tears welled up and I felt a rush of peace wash over me. God was saying through this place and His example, “just like I passed through the crowd wanting to take me down, you and those you love will walk through your dark valleys in victory in front of the very people and enemy seeking to break you.”
Woah. The tears fell. To my left, I see the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:2) where Jesus appeared in all His glory to a couple of His disciples; to my right, I see the bustling city of Nazareth where an angel told Mary she would give birth to the messiah and where my Savior, the King of the World, took His first steps; and in front of me, I see Megiddo, where Jesus will one day win the final battle against His enemies.
Moments with my dad I will cherish forever
Who am I, that Jesus would walk these steps from Galilee to Jerusalem, to guarantee I could walk with Him side by side every day?
Who am I, to be on this mountain, breathing in Jesus’ plan to bridge the gap between Him and His creation through His life, just so His obedience could become my abundant reality by grace and faith alone?
And this is just day one. Oh, all the places we went! And I want to tell you about them all, but for now, let’s rest in this glorious reality: we can walk in confidence through the trials in front of us, the storms raging inside us, and the opposition all around us because He already did.
We can go to bed tonight in peace and wake up the same because we have authority from Him and through His Spirit living in us to keep hoping and believing against all odds. That’s what Jesus did, and He cheers us on every day to do the same.
More to come,
Dee
New friends attempting to take a jumping picture on Mount Precipice with the Mount of Transfiguration casually behind us 🙂
For the Times In-Between 