Thirsting for God

Once again the day is indescribable! As we headed to our first stop we listened to God Bless the USA by Lee Greenwood. We are thanking God for the USA, our freedom, and those who have served to give us that freedom! Happy 4th of July to you! And thanks for reading.

Our first stop was Ein Gedi ("Spring of the Wild Goats"). This was a waterfall in the Judean wilderness. The “wilderness” has taken on a whole new meaning. Imagine the heat when you open your oven to take a cake out. That rush of heat is what we feel each time we get off the bus. Although it is hot, very hot, at this time of year it has been such a blessing to experience the heat! Yesterday it was 110 here. Keep reading and you’ll see why the heat has been a perfect setup for this day’s teaching.

Think about walking for days in the heat, like the Patriarchs or David did and seeing only rocks, barrenness, and more rocks! Imagine coming upon the sound of rushing water! Birds chirping. Ibex running. We’ve found that any shade is marvelous and the sound of rushing water is LIFE. Literally! It is everywhere there is water, but only there! We hiked to the top to see water falling learning that every drop was from the mountains combining to form the stream of living water. We were soooo refreshed by the coolness as we went into the “Living Water”. It was not a dead cistern, or the hot, dead sea but rushing, cool refreshing water. Jesus is that water! The Living water! We are called to refresh others as Jesus’ followers. See Psalm 42:1-2 & Psalm 63:1. Many are weary and thirsty in a land, world or circumstances where there is no water! May we become as Jesus said in John 7:37-38! We can be this refreshing to others as we drink from Him, His Word and allow that ‘river of Life’ flow through us to others. We cannot give them
something we have not received ourselves. Question for us… “Who can see Jesus in
you? Who are you refreshing with the Living Water of Jesus”?

Next stop: Qumran- This is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947. We learned how the Essenes were devoted to preparing the way of the Lord here. They were tired of the corrupted religion that was taking place in Jerusalem and chose to live a life totally devoted to God, in humility, teaching repentance and return to God. Isa 40:3 John the Baptist was possibly a part of the Essene family. They saturated themselves with the Scriptures. Reading them. Interpreting them. Writing them and obeying them was their lifestyle. We learned about ritual purity, or a baptism of repentance, called Mikvah. This is not a baptism to salvation but to purity and return to God. Community was a priority as well as they lived simply and wholly devoted to God. The question for us……”Am I consumed with the text, the Bible”? Have we made His Word a priority in our lives?

Next: the Jordan River- wow! This is the border between Jordan and Israel. In every ref-erence it was more of a barrier that had to be crossed. Only as they listened and obeyed doing exactly what God said did the Jordan stop flowing. During flood stage this took faith as the priest stepped into the river. If “God didn’t come through for them”, they could have died. It is easy and tempting to “stay on the bank” of the river in our comfort zones of safety but God wants to partner with us to ‘take the land’. Much is written in the Scriptures about the Jordan. Question…… “Am I really all in, listening and obeying whatever God instructs me no matter how hard or crazy it seems”? Are we really taking God at His word trusting Him to come through?

Jericho- Obviously the walls of Jericho are gone but there is a city there. We stopped the bus and gathered under a Sycamore tree and learned about Zaccheus. (Oh how I wish I could have coffee with each of you and share this! The Rich Young Ruler story happened in Jericho as well as Blind Bartimaeus. There is just no way to explain all this!) Zaccheus was an outcast, a tax collector but wanted to ‘see Jesus’. The religious leaders of the day had nothing to do with him because of his being a ‘chief tax collector’. Jesus went to him and called to him. Again, we are to look for those ‘out-cast’ and call them to come to Jesus. We are to be on the lookout for the marginalized!

We ended the day traveling to what we call the sea of Galilee. It’s beautiful! We are so excited to be here and see all of this. The community, worship, fellowship and teachings have been such a blessing! Mark and Julie have done a fabulous job and our guid Ronan is the best! Some others have agreed to write the blog with me. Tomorrow’s theme- “Disciple”. Hope you keep reading! We are having a blast!

BEVERLY