MOVING FORWARD - pastor mike landry

What a trip...no...what a journey. A trip is simply traveling and moving from one destination to another. Pictures are taken, memories are stored, and bodies are wearied. After the trip, you simply return home with another notch carved into your travel belt.

My Holy Land adventure was much more than a trip. It was a life changing journey. Sure, a lot of pictures were taken, new experiences were engraved as memories, and I did return tired. But I'm no longer the same person. My trip became a spiritual journey that God used to adjust my frame of reference. My journey put a Biblical frame around real people, real places, and real conversations. For example:

When traveling the same path that Moses led the Israelites on from northern Egypt to Mt. Sinai, I gained a whole new appreciation for the miraculous nature of the trip and provision/protection of God. We're talking about an 8 hour trip by bus through some of the most barren terrain you'll ever pass through. Nothing but rocks and dirt and mountains. My friend and fellow pastor, Bill Hild, says it's the closest thing on earth to walking on the moon. He's right.

I try to imagine a couple million Israelites (men, women, and children) traveling on foot down that same path. Only with the miraculous intervention of God and His protection could they have made it. God was using this short hop to teach the Israelites AND ME that the journey itself may even be more important than the final destination. It's along the journey that we learn to really trust God. You see what I mean...a bus ride from Mt. Sinai to Cairo became a video prepared by God for my heart to teach me that I need to pay attention along the way instead of always being so obsessively focused on getting to my final destination.

Since going on this journey, I cannot read the Bible the same anymore. The locations and the settings all mean so much more now and help me to better understand the truth of God's Word. Talk to anyone who went on the journey with me and they'll tell you the same thing. It's amazing. This journey to the Holy Lands was like getting another degree from seminary.

If you get a chance sometime to go...don't hesitate...you will never get over it. Plus, you're going to establish some new friendships with the people you travel with. You'll find that they become like close family -- which by the way, is another priority lesson that God wants us all to learn...the value of relationships. This is definately not the kind of trip you want to do alone...you need to be able to share it with others.

Hope we can do it together in the future sometime. I hope to go back in a few years.

Shalom