Retracing My Steps in Israel: A Pilgrimage of the Heart~Part 4

Good Morning to day 2 of our trek through Israel!

Lord, do a work in my heart as I remember where I have been with You! Teach me, I am listening.

First stop--Beth Shemesh (means House of Sun)

A little background about this place:

Beth Shemesh is on the via maris, the trade route and crossroads of all commerce

It was a Danite Territory

A Levitical town

Samson was here

Israelites did not drive out the Canaanites here as the Lord had commanded

The Israelites didn't want the ark of the covenant, the very thing that represented the glory of God! We could see with our very own eyes the road the never before yoked cows had walked on by themselves to Beth Shemesh with the ark and offerings from the Philistines. Obviously the LORD had directed every single step of these oxen! It brought life to the pages of Scripture. The Israelites looked in the ark, knowing they were not to do this and God struck dead 70 men. They passed the ark off to Kiriath Jearim. (1 Samuel 6:1-21) A question that was asked to us: What does the Lord give me that I don't want because it might be inconvenient? (We could stay on this topic for awhile, but want to continue on for today. If you ever want to chat about this, I would love to!)

The Lord has had me meditating and processing Living Water and Cisterns at Beth Shemesh because we got to go in a cistern while we are at this location! A real one! What on earth is a cistern? I had always pictured it being a pit, like a well in the ground, deep with walls of dirt. This particular one (many are like this in Israel) could hold 54,000 gallons of water and we walked down under the ground to get to it. This was hewn out of stone. Fascinating, a father and son found this cistern in 1997, which is rather recent considering it has been there for thousands of years.

"My people have committed two sins; They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." Jeremiah 2:13

(Take some time to read the verse again and again, don't just skim through it, let the Word wash over you, then check out the pictures of the actual cistern and mayim chayim-living water.)

We are carefully hiking down into the cistern. It held all 60+ of us with ease. That is huge, bigger than our pool, just to give some perspective.

Just for a moment we have jumped to another location, only so we can contrast mayim chayim and cisterns. We didn't go to this site until later in our trip. Can you see the difference? I want to go jump in this right now! This water bursting forth is smack dab in the middle of the desert!

(Blue is an appropriate color when talking about water, so hence the blue font. :) Originally I went with orange font but that got changed fast when I put 2 and 2 together!)

The Lord uses comparisons to help me see how desperately I need Him and not my manmade second rate ways to "collect water", feel free to add to my list:

Cistern

Manmade

Dries up

Stagnant & Bitter (sat for months)

Dark & Covered

Breaks

Doesn't make you feel fresh

Meets a need to live

Used for evil

Place for prisoners

Living Water (mayim chayim)

Made by the Creator

Endless supply

Fresh

Constant flow bursting forth

Powerful

Draws people

Beautiful to the eye

Always provides

Cleanses the body

Satisfies thirst

Out in the open

After contemplating a bit more on the drastic difference between the two, what is it that I gravitate to?

They both supply water, but which is lasting and satisfying?

Am I content drinking rainwater that has been sitting for months in a manmade pit, stagnant with no movement or am I willing to walk through the desert to find the boundless supply of fresh, powerful, satisfying, cleansing water?

Let's revisit Jeremiah 2:13: "My people have committed two sins (evil); They have forsaken (abandoned) Me, the spring of Living Water, and have dug (to cut a rock, hewn) their own cisterns (wells), broken (burst) cisterns that cannot hold water."

The Lord=Spring of Living Water

Cisterns=manmade things we create to satisfy our desires, that never measure up to the real deal

Why would I want anything less than Jesus, the Giver of Living Water, the Only one who can satisfy, refresh, and quench?

How have I turned my back on Jesus Christ and created temporal things that substitute what is true satisfaction, like the Israelites did?

I didn't grasp how powerful Living Water is until I saw it with my own eyes as it pounded on the heads of those who stood under it. The Spirit, who lives in us is Living Water, He is all powerful and as we believe Him, the same power that raised Christ from the dead is ours to use for His glory. Do I live daily, moment by moment in His power? O, I want to! He is everything to me. O how I need Him to grace me with faith to believe that He will give me everything I need for every second of the day!

The thing I catch myself trying to have satisfy me other than Christ is Brian. Years ago I memorized Ps. 90:14 because I would look to Brian for approval and affirmation and encouragement and...so the Lord began to teach me and say to my heart, "Yvonne, I am the Only One who can satisfy completely, that's how I designed it. Look to me." I didn't stop there, I looked up Scripture, studied it, meditated on it, and hid it in my heart because I had a feeling I would have to recall truth to mind more than once or twice.

Satisfy us in the morning

with Your unfailing love

that we may sing for joy

and be glad all our days.

Psalm 90:14

Come, all you who are thirsty,

come to the waters...

Why spend money on what is not bread

and your labor on what does not satisfy.

Listen, listen to Me

and your soul will delight in the

richest of fare.

Isaiah 55:1-3

What a joy to journey together with Christ, the Giver of Living Water!

Some of you have said the comment section hasn't been allowing you to post, I think that is fixed now if you desire. I love to read where the Lord has you as you walk with Him and how He is encouraging your heart through the Word and challenging you as well.

I love you deeply.

Retracing My Steps in Israel: A Pilgrimage of the Heart~Part 3

Today is going to be a day of pictures.

The Lord has me camping out in Jeremiah 2:13 and the two evils Israel committed. As I process more of what the Lord is teaching me concerning Living Water and Cisterns, I will devote next week to writing about just that.

For now, enjoy People & the Promised Land with no clear order or purpose...simply fun:

I am the vine, you are the branches...this picture really truly is taken in Israel. I can imagine in my mind Jesus teaching on this and using every day examples as he and the disciples walked along the way! ABIDE!

Shawna & I dripping in sweat and loving every second of it!

Ronen, our fabulous Jewish tour guide! That man has his masters in middle eastern culture or something of the sort. Brilliant. I learned so much under his teaching. Ronen means JOY!

Back to the first evening in Israel...just can't get over the awe of it!

O how I love Jesus! Thankful for His life and for putting on skin, so we could put Him on! O how we worship the King!

Retracing My Steps in Israel: A Pilgrimage of the Heart~Part 2

As we walked away from the Solomonic Gate at tel Gezer and up a hill, what stood before me caused my heart to leap! I had to contain myself to not run down the hill and jump up and down. I am 37 (36 at the time) and had to at least act mature for the younger folk.

It has been my dream to see real "live" Standing Stones! Here they are, right before my eyes. I might have squealed, but I am not going to tell.

Rocks of Remembrance

Standing Stones

have been significant

in my walk with Christ.

My mind raced to Joshua 3 & 4. (Gezer isn't near the Jordan River, the rocks just made me think of the story.) The Israelites cross the Jordan and into the Promised Land! They are finally home! The LORD didn't want them to forget, nor the generations after them, so He told Joshua to choose 12 men, one from each tribe, to each pick up a rock from the middle of the Jordan.

Why?

Joshua 4:6,7

...to serve as a sign among you.

In the future, when your children ask you,

'What do these stones mean?'

tell them that the flow of the Jordan was

cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD.

When it crossed the Jordan,

the waters of the Jordan were cut off.

These stones are to be a memorial

to the people of Israel forever.

The Israelites had some remembering to do of the LORD's love, faithfulness, power, Keeper of covenant...DO NOT FORGET!

I have remembering to do as well and physical reminders, like big stones, trigger me to remember-yes, LORD, you are faithful, You have taken this heart of stone and made it a heart of flesh, You have made an everlasting covenant with me!

As Rich began to teach at the Standing Stones, my excitement shifted to being solemn, sickened, and contemplative. These rocks had nothing to do with God Almighty, the One true God. It was a high place, a place of pagan worship, where prostitution and child sacrifice were practiced. Sensuality and murder.

What?

Even the Canaanites, those who didn't worship God,

took time to remember and worship

something

someone.

Help Lord! Since you created every person to worship,

the question is

Who or what am I remembering to worship?

Since I will act according to what I remember,

What standing stones do I have erected in my life?

Solomon, a King who worshiped God, who controlled Gezer, never tore down these high places of pagan worship or demolish the stones, as the Lord had commanded, because his heart was divided because of his wives. A whole people were led astray thinking they could live with both-idols and God. The Lord says:

I am the LORD; that is my name!

I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.

Isaiah 42:8

Are there any stones in my life that I or others have erected that must be demolished?

What am I remembering that doesn't shout grace and holiness?

Possibilities of pagan standing stones:

Unforgiveness

Putting people on a pedestal

Bitterness

Sensuality

Performance

Insecurity

Partial Grace

Pride

Selfishness

Kids

Husband

Friends

Impatience

Fear

Anxiety...

Must be demolished

As I sat in this for awhile, allowing the Spirit to search my heart, what must be destroyed and demolished in my life, something that doesn't shout-Jesus is HERE! He is recognizable- the Lord brought to mind a TV show I began to watch. Most shows begin fine, get ya hooked, then throw on some sensuality or a lot of it. I had to make the choice to not watch this show I had gotten into. It's amazing how easy it can be for me to justify the "little things". The Lord said, "STOP". I haven't watched it since. I confess to you that I have been tempted, thinking, maybe this time won't be like the last, but lifting the name of Jesus high is way more important to me than satisfying my desire to relax and be entertained...so I continue to say, I can't...not gonna go there.

HOW I remember the Lord is as essential as oxygen is to life!

As I smile for this picture, I am perplexed in my mind, do I smile or frown? What should my face look like as I stand next to these stones that are 10-20 feet tall that represent evil?

I chose to smile

because of what these rocks taught me

how desperately I need

Jesus, my Living Stone!

The only way a stone can be living is if the Lord breaths life into it!

Strong, obvious to others, moving around,

not in one place like other standing stones

Shows the World that Jesus is ALIVE!

I am like a living stone...am I pointing all to the Living Stone?

I want my every thought, my every memory to be of Jesus Christ! The Only One who is worthy of my remembering and living!

Our time at Gezer has drawn to a close as Shabbot was about to begin. We paused soaking in the view; we were really in Israel. Lizz read Deuteronomy 6 as the sun set. O the Presence of the Lord was thick. The cry of my heart-Lord, show me Your glory! You are my Gate and my Living Stone.

I would love to hear your answers to questions I posed to myself as I journeyed through the Land. Will you sharpen me, encourage me, and challenge me. I need you!

Retracing My Steps in Israel: A Pilgrimage of the Heart~Part 1

As we stepped off of the plane in Israel, we met Ronen, our Jewish tour guide, and Eli, our bus driver. One of the first things we were told in the Promised Land was, "A picture speaks a thousand words. While you are here, we will show you a thousand pictures." That phrase played over and over in my mind during our 10 day trip.

Rich, our leader from Hume, shared with us that as Americans we think in words: God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and so on. The Jewish people think in pictures: God is our Rock, Fortress..I think I have become Jewish, because my mind is filled with pictures of a place that is in my blood and feel the urgency to go back and see more of the glory of God (yes, I know that the earth is full of His glory and I see it all around me...there is just something about that place...)!

My desire is to share some "pictures" with you that have changed my life forever and have grown my love for the LORD Jesus by leaps and bounds. This is quite a discipline for me, because writing doesn't flow from me, yet the Lord uses it to cement things He has and is teaching me. Plus, if there is any way to peak your interest in visiting the Land the Lord chose, I am jumping in your suitcase!

First Stop immediately after leaving the airport:

Gezer (means "

increase")

Some insight into Gezer:

*It's a tel-a hill, 26 civilizations are on top of each other.

*A great place for a city because it is near water, food, defensible, on the via maris trade route.

*18 miles north west of Jerusalem

*Town was apart of Ephraim's inheritance.

*A Levitical town

As Joshua began to conquer Canaan, the Israelites defeated the King of Gezer near Lachish, but the Canaanites were never completely driven out. David struck down the Philistines all the way from Gibeon to Gezer. King Solomon inherited Gezer because it was a wedding gift to one of his wives from her father, Pharaoh, the King of Egypt. He used forced labor to build up the wall around Gezer and the town itself (Joshua 10; Judges 1:28,29; 2 Samuel 5:22-25; 1 Chronicles 20:4; 1 Kings 9:15-17).

The Gate

This is the first picture etched in my mind and has had significant spiritual ramifications in my life.

It was hard for me to put my mind around the fact that we were sitting on part of a gate to a city that was thousands of years old!

This was a Solomonic Gate, as Solomon built similar gates in various cities.

It wasn't simply a gate with a door that swung back and forth. A person entering or leaving the city would have to walk through a small tunnel where there were rooms or chambers on either side of you and above you. This would aid in protection of the city because the gate is the weakest part of the city.

As I contemplated why the gate was so significant, these thoughts rushed into my mind: the gate opens and closes; it serves as a filter of who comes and goes; prepares someone to enter the city; a place of influence, prestige, justice, prominence. With a little research through God's Word, I discovered that the Gate is the place to be! If one wanted to know what was going on, hear important announcements, hear God's Word, to seek a decision from judges, or to buy food. It seems similar to what Twitter, Costco, Life Group, Court, People magazine all lumped into one place is to us today. (I photo boothed this drawing of what a city gate may have looked like. It helped me envision the hustle and bustle better.)

A place of influence...

While sitting at the Solomic Gate, we were asked a couple of questions:

Where does God have me to influence others?

or

Am I being influenced by the world?

I continued with more questions for the Lord to search my heart:

How can I be distinct and different from the natural current of our culture?

&

How am I influencing our culture and others?

Influences in our modern context:

Social Media Church Family Friends My home

• Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, movies, tv
• Podcasts, pastors, professors, leaders
• Mom, Dad, sisters, brothers, inlaws, kids
• One on one conversations, life group

Obviously this is not an extensive list, but seems overwhelming, none the less, so where do I begin?

MY HOME! It makes absolute sense! This is my primary place of influence. Whoever enters through our door, my prayer is that they sense the peace of Jesus Christ: a sacred, safe, warm place where all can find Jesus in every corner, oozing with His love. What do I allow through our "gate" or front door? If I allow things that are just ok or blatantly sinful to enter, it's as if I would allow an enemy to enter my fortified city. We would never allow that! That would defeat the whole purpose of having a gate: to filter who can come and go.

I read in a Bible dictionary, "to have the gate, is to have the city". Who is the authority of our "gate"? Who filters who comes and goes?

Jesus

He is the Door

He is the Gate

He is the Authority of our home

The Lord answered my question quite simply: with Christ as our Door, we, the Downs, will only allow such things to enter our home that lift up the name of Jesus and cause Him to be recognizable.

Some things are easy for us to figure out what to allow, other things are subtle, and Satan, the father of lies, who love nothing better than to trick us into thinking the little things are ok and won't hurt too much. But the question must remain, are we distinct and different and filled with grace or do we look like the norm of our culture? O, how abiding in Christ is the answer!

What tv shows and movies will I watch at home? This is one the Lord has had to convict me with more than once. I like tv and to enjoy a good show. I began to watch a show this summer online and the Spirit began prodding my heart to stop. Great action but it began to include sensuality and the Lord is so clear that there should be no hint of it, so it took some weeks before I made the commitment to stop watching it all together. I sensed my flesh desiring more and knew that was my queue to be done. Upon seeking the Lord more extensively about Jesus being my Door, I made a clear decision- ENOUGH. The thing is, it wasn't horrible, just not best or even good. Psalm 15 and Philippians 4 kept coming to mind. Yes, Lord, I humbly submit to You! You have all my affections and I willingly surrender this to you. It's been a few weeks. The thought enters my mind to watch it and I quickly say, "nope, not gonna go there" and then fix my gaze on Jesus!

More areas: my conversations, books I read, magazines, my time, what I eat & drink, etc.

Will you read John 10 and then I would LOVE to hear where the Lord is leading you in this or what you are wrestling with.

If you actually made it through this post, you may not have had any idea that you would really be on a pilgrimage (a long journey with a purpose), that is only the half of what the Lord has stirring in my heart concerning The Gate!

Thank you for the accountability from some of you to make sure I took the time to journal this today. The Body of Christ blesses and sharpens me!

Retracing My Steps in Israel: A Pilgrimage of the Heart

My last post was some 10 months ago and what the Lord has done in that time is powerful and breathtaking.  He is glorious!

The previous post was written by Brian as we enjoyed time in the Grand Tetons on a family vacation this summer!  He usually writes witty entries about the trips we take, but the mountains beckoned us and taking care of Julianne (with her broken leg) didn't allow for blog time.

Every Wednesday I am devoting the morning to retrace the steps we hiked in Israel and dive into the Word concerning each city or place mentioned.  The Lord is using this time to transform my heart and mind in significant ways.  I would love to invite you on my pilgrimage of the heart.  As a part of the process of the Lord teaching me through His Word, I will post what I have learned for the day.

I love Him more now than ever!  I long to know and love Him more deeply every single day!  He is worthy!