Day 10

Wow, I can't believe its been 10 days since we've been here! We went to McDonald's for lunch today, which doesn't quite taste the same as it does in the states (but we knew that already from our trip to Europe). Our lunch discussion was about what our favorite part of the trip was so for. There has been so much in the past 10 days that we really had a difficult time deciding. What we did all agree upon was that we have a new dimension as we read Scripture. It's become 3D. Heidi and I were reading Judges 20 yesterday, and we knew all the cities that were mentioned there, and we could describe the geography to each other. It has been amazing. Today was very surprising as well. Israel has such a variety of terrain it is crazy. We've gone from cities, to plush valleys, to forests, hills, to sand dunes, to desert.

We are currently 2 miles away from the Egyptian border and probably even closer to the Jordan border, in the Sinai Peninsula. Our favorite part about today was wandering in the Wilderness of Paran, like the Israelites did. The bus dropped us off in this hilly desert terrain and we were ordered to take no water, no food, just Deuteronomy 8. Our similarities to the wandering Israelites stopped there, since we only spent 40 minutes in the desert while they spent 40 years. Deuteronomy 8 is a passage speaking about how the Israelites were not to forget God when He brought them into the promised land, but instead were reminded to continually place there trust in God. The Israelites were in a transition period. They had wandered in the wilderness of Paran for 40 years and now God was telling them to go take the land that he had promised them. The Israelites were to remember that God had provided for them while they were wandering, and now that they were entering a fertile land, they were to remember God even more. This brings me to our life. Heidi and I are in a transition. I am mostly finished with school and beginning to look towards the future. We don't know how God is going to use us, where He is leading us, or when it will take shape. What we do know is that God has been faithful to us in the past and He deserves to be praised. How much more will He be deserving of praise when we are taken out of this figurative wilderness and brought into a new land! What's great for us is that we know that even if our future is rough and God leads us into even more wilderness, God is still faithful and God is still deserving of praise. Where are you at in your life? Are you in the wilderness or in the fertile land? Are you properly praising God regardless of your circumstances? Are you praising God because of who He is and not because of what your life situation consists of? Regardless of your circumstances, God is in control, even when your life might be consisting of testings and trials. Praise God, for He is good and He is faithful.