Can we trust our sight?

We started the day the same way we ended the last: the Dead Sea. It’s a beautiful place, really just more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen. I’ve heard so much about the Dead Sea over the years, but I don’t know exactly what I was expecting. It’s right between two mountain ranges and there’s no boats, so it’s incredibly calm. The most surprising thing about it to me was this: It looked just like a normal ocean. There was no indication of the death it held, no sign saying, “Turn back now!” No person jumping up and down, yelling, “This isn’t safe! Don’t trust it!” Drinking only eight ounces of the water would kill you and experts recommend not staying in longer than 10 minutes at a time. It feels so deceptive! How can something that appears so beautiful actually be so dangerous? I think this is a lot like our lives. So often, something appears that looks like a safe, practical alternative to the risk of trusting God. Today I learned how little we can actually trust what we see.

Next, we hiked Ein Gedi. It’s a nature reserve in Israel, in the Judean Wilderness close to the Dead Sea. When we arrived, I was, candidly, not excited. It looked like some dry, barren, wasteland without much to offer. As we hiked into the wilderness, we began to hear something. Something miraculous. Running water. Running water is pretty rare in Israel. Mt. Hermon runs into the Sea of Galilee, which feeds the Jordan, which brings water into the Dead Sea. Other than that, there are dry river beds called wadi’s that turn into rivers when it rains heavily. So to hear running water in Ein Gedi was crazy. It hadn’t been raining, so the water must have been coming from somewhere else. As we contributed, we realized. It was a spring! An incredible waterfall in the middle of barren land! At the waterfall, we talked about Psalm 63, which David wrote while hiding in the Judean Wilderness. It says,

“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.”‬‬

Would this have been my posture before the Lord if I had to hide in the wilderness? Would I let my faith guide me, or would I trust my eyes that could only see the barren land, unaware of the living water that was just a few miles further? Thankfully, unlike the Dead Sea, there’s no time limit in the true living water. We can spend our whole lives with the true living water and be fully satisfied.

We ended our day at Qumran. In the 1950’s, Bedouin shepherds discovered some pottery in a cave at Qumran. This discovery would lead archeologists to uncover biblical scrolls, preserved in caves by the Essene community over 2,000 years ago. The Dead Sea Scrolls are remarkable because it confirmed the reliability of Scripture, dating back to the time of Jesus. While there, we learned about the temptation of Jesus, which happened at the end of his 40 days of fasting in the Judean Wilderness (Matthew 4:1-10), the same mountain range that we sat in today. Satan tempted Jesus with his sight, taking him to see all the false promises that could be his. But Jesus did not trust in what our eyes would see as good. Instead, he continued entrusting himself to the Father, knowing that we walk by faith, not by sight. I pray that I always remember to trust the Lord, not my sight.

-Mary Lee Knowles