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Maybe you remember President Obama saying that shortly after he came into office. I did listen to his speech on Wednesday after the Republican wave in the House and Senate, but I didn’t hear him reiterate those words. :-) But elections do have consequences.That’s true in politics and in life. You probably know me well enough to know that I don't use my platform or this blog for politics. I’m not talking about politics here. I’m talking about life. You see, an election, at its

After ten days of traveling and touring, we arrived home last Monday. If you’ve kept up on my previous posts, you’ll see that we had seven full days of touring Israel. Our eighth day was a free day, and Linda and I and a group of a few others, did a tunnel tour under the streets of Israel. It was fascinating, of course, as we were able to see aspects of the city near the Temple Mount that date before the time of Jesus. That evening, we boarded a plane to go home. It’s always

We visited quite a range of sites today. We went into the Judean mountains west of Jerusalem and located the Valley of Elah where David fought Goliath. We walked along the stream bed (it is dry this time of year) where he picked out five smooth stones and we found our own as keepsakes. We then visited Beit Shemesh, which was Delilah's hometown. It is mentioned a number of times in the Old Testament because it was a border city occupied by Philistines and the site of numerous

Every settlement, village, or city in the ancient world had to have a water source. The nomads even chose their temporary encampments by proximity to water source, and they wandered the desert following the vegetation, which follows the water. The Bedouins are today’s nomads of the Middle East and that’s exactly what they do. They follow the water.It’s all about water for everything living. It’s not as stark in the modern developed world or in climates such as ours, because w

Today was all about the footsteps of Jesus. We left our hotel at 7:30 this morning and went to the Mount of Olives. This was moving for me. While there are many sites that are in doubt, there is no doubt about the Mount of Olives. It is still covered with Olive Trees (it was a grove in Jesus’ time), some that are still being harvested. Jesus spent a lot of time here. When he visited Jerusalem, Luke tells us that he would spend the days in the city and then retreat to this pla

Today was our first day in Jerusalem. There is so much to see here that we know we won’t get it all in. I’ve already learned so much that I can’t catalog it all in my brain just yet. I thought I was pretty familiar with the city and the country without having been here. But I now realize how little I knew.Our guide wisely started us off at the Jerusalem Museum of Antiquities where they have an outdoor 50:1 scale model of the city as it was in 66AD, before the Jewish revolt w

It’s only when you’re small, that you can be big.Jesus taught that. And it was a theme in the things we saw today.We started off visiting the Ein Harod springs, where Gideon thinned his army from 10,000 fighting men to a mere 300, before miraculously defeating the Midianites. You remember the story of how God told Gideon to have the men drink from the stream of water, and only those who drank from their cupped hands would be chosen? It happened right here.From there we trave

It’s only our second day touring Israel and we already feel like we are drinking from a fire hydrant. Today we worshipped in a church atop Mount Carmel, explored the 3,500 year old ruins of the ancient city, Megiddo, and visited the hometown of Mary Magdalene, where we also saw a first century synagogue that Jesus most likely attended and even ministered in.Magdala, the birthplace of Mary Magdalene (“of Magdala”) is an ongoing archeological dig that was discovered only a few

Today was one of the most interesting days of my life. And the fulfillment of a life-long dream.This was the first touring day for those of us on The Bridge Experience Israel group. And what a way to start.We took a boat across the Sea of Galilee, explored Capernaum, visited the area where Jesus delivered his famous Sermon on the Mount, and I baptized dozens of people very near where John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. In fact, just for the experience, and th

There is a hysteria level of concern over the world threat of Ebola. Here in America, it is dominating the press, broadcast and cable TV news, as well as radio, newspaper and web based outlets.How bad of a threat is it?Really bad if you live in East Africa. The first known case was discovered in 1976, but the most recent outbreak has taken thousands of lives in places like Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, just this year. And it is showing no signs of slowing. In fact, it is

Linda and I sat in our living room this morning praying together. We were asking the Lord for good weather next Sunday for the Chicago Marathon and his help and guidance with our upcoming trip to Israel, among a few other personal concerns.Then we began to pray for our brothers and sisters in Kobani, Syria, the Kurdish city just captured by Isis whose Christian population are in serious threat of mass killings and torture. We prayed also for little girls in third world countr

I haven’t read Psalm 119 in a while. And when I have, I don’t think I’ve read it carefully enough. If you’ve been following our church reading plan, we just went through Psalm 119, but we did it section by section, breaking it up. I think it’s the first time I’ve “thought” my way through reading it. A couple of days ago I read v. 131 in the New Living Translation. And a wonderful picture came to my mind. "I pant with expectation, longing for your commands.” – Psalm 119:131 If