Day 15

Today has been very long. We've done a lot of driving and a lot of walking. Unfortunately we're getting to the point of the trip where everything is beginning to look alike. Yesterday we were at the beach on the Mediterranean, two days ago we were in Jerusalem where there it was urban and seemed to have no grass, three days ago we were in the desert of the Wilderness of Zin and Paran and today we are in the lush fields of the Jezreel Valley. The landscape has been incredibly diverse, yet this morning we were walking through a 2000 year old ruin and it felt like we've seen the same thing in previous days. I think it's because of the amount of information we're being given and we don't have enough time to process it. Yet, this afternoon it all changed. We reached Galilee and Capernaum. We hiked down the side of a cliff that overlooked the Sea of Galilee and all sorts of stories began to come alive. The cliff that was went down had ladder rungs and cables during the really "dangerous" parts to help give you a grip on the mountainside so we were safe enough. The Mountain that we climbed down was 590 feet above sea level and the Sea of Galilee is 700 feet below sea level. We didn't hike all the way down to the Sea of Galilee, but I bet we were close to 1000 feet when we finished.

We were really excited to be staying at a super nice resort, where they fed us grilled/barbecued chicken, and chicken with sauteed onions. After hiking down the mountain it was even nicer to eat well and then jump into the Sea of Galilee. It was so refreshing and satisfying. About halfway through the day, we went to the probable cliff that Jesus was brought in Nazareth after he read the Isaiah passage documented in Luke 4. The passage speaks about how the Messiah would come healing the blind and proclaiming the good news to the poor. Jesus then told the people of his childhood home that he was the one Isaiah was writing about. Then Jesus supposed that they would get him to perform his "magic tricks" on the people of Nazareth, since he had been doing these things in Capernaum and not his boyhood home of Nazareth. Jesus told them that he doesn't heal on command and that he wasn't going to these things in his hometown, probably because they were trying to manipulate his will. They brought him to the brow of a hill so they could throw him down the side of it. Jesus obviously escaped, but it presents an interesting dilemma in our lives. How many times do we try to manipulate God. I remember as a kid praying for God to make me incredibly wealthy and telling him I'd do anything if he helped my family win the lotto...among other things. I didn't know God at all then. I still don't know him completely, but I do know that I shouldn't be trying to manipulate God. The people of Nazareth tried to manipulate Jesus. They tried to get him to do his "tricks" without understanding him at all. Today, we challenge you to pray that God would reveal His will to you instead of you trying to force God's will onto your own plans.