What do you see?

I remember back in elementary school when all my friends got glasses. I mean, almost every single person...except for me. I was bummed to say the least. I was jealous of the effortless accessory and the added aura of intelligence the simple addition of glasses gave to the lucky person that wore them. It took a couple of years (and accidentally seeing someone shove their contacts onto their actual eyeball with their own finger) before I began to appreciate having clear vision. To appreciate my sight.

Sunday afternoon I, along with my 29 Forge siblings, the directors, and 17 added friends and family members set of for Israel. A trip we have been anticipating for months and months had finally arrived. We were going to see the promised land. And I thought back to elementary school, and began again to appreciate my sight. But not exactly my physical sight.

The question “what do you see?” had been on my mind since a trip we took some months back, and it came to me again as I sat on the plane, surrounded by my friends-turned-family. I saw excited faces. I saw glittering eyes. I asked for God to show me more of himself in Israel. And then I put on my eye-mask and proceeded to see nothing.

(It is hard to see the movies playing, or your friends drooling on themselves as they sleep on the plane when you are the one drooling, and the only thing you can see are your eyelids).

After over 24 hours in transit, we made it to Tel Aviv. We passed through customs and packed into the bus, chattering as we drove to our hotel. We pulled up, and as we got out I turned to one of the girls next to me who had never been out of the country and said: “Just wait until we wake up in the morning and we can see! Then it will feel real.”

Who knew just a day later I would come to realize just how wrongly I often interpret sight.

Today we woke up in Israel. And the light brought clarity of our surroundings. But more than that, the surroundings brought clarity of the Living God. The God who, even after only one day in His land, I will never see the same again.

The day started at Kiriath-Jearim, the ‘town of the forest,” and we read about the ark of the covenant in 1 Samuel 4-7. A story I knew on a surface level suddenly came to life. We were sitting where the ark of the covenant of the Lord was for 20 years.

To the Israelites, the presence of the ark meant the presence of God, and when the Philistines captured it, Israel felt that they had lost God. “The glory of God has departed from Israel” (1 Samuel 4:21). And when the ark was returned after causing torment for the Philistines, when the Israelites “lifted up their eyes and saw the ark, they rejoiced to see it” (1 Samuel 6:13).

The next stop was Beth Shemesh “house of the sun,” and we read the story of Samson while looking at the exact land he was born and buried in. The idea of sight was the driving factor in Samson’s life, as he lived doing what was right in his own eyes. He broke the Nazaritic vow, more than once, in multiple areas- he lived a selfish, reckless life. Yet, his name is listed in Hebrews 11 next to men who “by faith,” lived for God.

Because Samson eventually saw God, and it took him losing his actual sight to do so. At the end of his life Samson realized that his strength didn’t come from his hair, it didn’t even come from himself at all, but from the Lord. And he had faith in that strength, the strength of the God of Israel. Of the God that he didn’t need to see to know was working.

And the same goes for David.

We went to Tel Azekah, which just so happens to look over the Elah valley in the exact location of where David slew Goliath. When David fought Goliath, Israel was living by sight. Goliath was big, he was scary, he seemed to have strength. But David lived by faith. He lived by a hearing that leads to obedience (Sh’ma, for all my Deuteronomy 6:4 fans), and he knew his strength came from the Lord.

David and Goliath is not an underdog story. It is a story to show how big our God is. And to perfectly exemplify what it means to live by faith and not by sight.

David continued to live by faith throughout his life, and as we visited the Caves of Adullam, one of the places where David hid as Saul was hunting him down for over 10 years, and as we read Psalm 57 and Psalm 142, this became even clearer. In these Psalms David praises the Lord for his steadfastness and faithfulness, despite the dreary and dire circumstances he had been in for years.

And then there is Abraham, father Abraham, who’s many sons have lived because of God’s unconditional covenant, and Abraham’s faith. In Be’er Sheba we read Genesis, about the “God of seeing” as we sat underneath a tamarisk tree- a symbol of Abraham’s faith in God to fulfill His promise.

And it is there that I realized I had been asking the wrong question this whole time.

As I looked at tel Be’er Sheba, I thought about the ones we saw earlier in the day, and what makes up a tel. A tel is a hill/mountain formed by years of ancient civilizations built upon the same land. If land has become a tel it means that the land was sought after, it was in a strategic location, it was good land...it was coveted.

But a tel looks just like any other large mound of land until you dig. Until you uncover the layers of history. The treasures cannot often be seen with the naked eye.

Before this trip I had been asking the Lord “why me?” Why do I get to go to Israel? And I do not think that’s a bad question. But it produced a thought in me that I was somehow special. That somehow, this trip was about me, and my spiritual growth.

I had been thinking that I was the tel. Except I am simply the mound of dirt around the treasure. Because in myself, I am nothing. I have nothing to offer. It is the God of Israel, the One who is too transcendent for words, but is somehow living and active and operating inside of me. He is the real treasure here.

And it is not about sight.

I, along with the others in this trip, get the blessing of uncovering the ‘tel’ that is the God of Israel. As we walk where Jesus walked, and as our eyes are physically opened to the reality in the Bible, we simultaneously get to see that it is not about sight. The vision is simply a gift.

The thing about a tel is that even if you can’t see the layers of civilizations, the treasure is still there.

God is so much bigger than our sight, and while the sight can provide clarity, it is the faith he wants. Faith that he will fulfill his promises as he has always been faithful to do. And gratefulness that we get to be the mounds of dirt that houses the tel.

May we not be like Israel who saw but did not Sh’ma. They saw but did not hear the Lord and obey his voice.

I pray, and for those not here that are reading this, I hope you’ll pray with me, that the rest of the time on this trip will be spent marveling at Yahweh, the I AM. May we be grateful for the works he is doing in us while here in Israel, but may we be reminded through the reality that comes with walking where he walked and seeing the good land that he promised would be flowing with milk and honey, that he is bigger. He is greater. We should love the Lord our God with all our hearts, strength, and might because he is worthy to be praised. And because he is so gracious to us.

Sh’ma Israel. Adonai eloheinu. Adoni echad.
Veh’ahavta et Adonai Eloheykha behol-levavkha u’vekhol nafsshekha u’vekhol me’odekha.

-Ali Scarlett