Pilgrimage (26 page)

When the body of Christ worships together, we serve as a witness, as well. That’s what Jesus prayed for on the night He was betrayed: “I pray also for those who will believe in me through [the disciples’] message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:20–21). We need each other. We need the solidarity of worshiping together as one.

I want to take this example of worship at the Kotel home with me and remember that the church is more than a beautifully decorated building with everyone acting and talking and thinking alike. It’s more than a particular liturgy or style of music or inspiring sermons. Christ’s worshiping church is a group of people from every tribe and nation and language, standing as one to worship, then returning to the daily tasks He has given us, trusting in His power, acting in His love.

The Kotel and its open-air plaza bear no resemblance to an inspiring cathedral or a modern mega-church. It’s nothing but a fragment of a wall, an ancient ruin. A pitiful remnant of a once-glorious Temple with its golden roof, acres of courtyards, and gleaming vessels of gold and silver; with priests in embroidered robes, the scent of incense and roasting meat filling the
air, and choirs of Levites singing praises to God. What remains is a crumbling fragment of that glory. But circumstances and loss can’t stop these worshipers from coming to the Kotel on a warm winter evening and expressing their love and praise. I join them, my heart overflowing with gratitude.

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

Habakkuk 3:17–18

A N
EW
P
RAYER
FOR
THE
J
OURNEY

My loving heavenly Father,

You created the universe in wisdom and love, and then crowned Your workmanship with rest. In Christ this world is held together, not by my puny labors and efforts. Forgive me for refusing Your gift of rest, for foolishly thinking that my work and my agenda are more important than Your command to stop and keep this day holy for You. Thank You for worship, for a chance to join with the body of Christ to praise You for Your goodness, a chance to stop and listen for Your voice. Thank You for my children and for reminding me that they aren’t mine but Yours. Help me to entrust them to Your care. And help me to rest in You for my salvation; to rest on You for my daily bread; and to rest from all of my own labors for Your glory.

Amen

12
Going Home

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

Hebrews 12:1

I
’m sitting in the departure lounge at Ben Gurion Airport, preparing to leave Israel and fly home. My journal is crammed with notes to digest, my camera bursting with photographs. Yet the picture that sticks in my mind is of something I saw on my Sabbath walk in Jerusalem yesterday afternoon. I stopped to peer through a hole in a construction fence at a new building going up. The workers began by digging a deep foundation—and of course they encountered ancient ruins and artifacts just below the surface. Sandbags and a grid of excavation pits marked the archeological dig site. But I could tell by the piles of building materials, cranes, and
bulldozers parked all over the vacant lot that the construction was moving forward even as the archaeologists continued to examine and record the past. I pulled my head out of the viewing hole and studied the poster emblazoned across the construction fence, the architect’s vision of the finished building. Past, present, and future collided right before my eyes.

Time seems to compress here in Israel. Like that construction site, this trip enabled me to envision the past, the present, and the future all at once—a God’s-eye view of time. The past is visible in the ancient ruins I’ve seen, reminding me that the roots of my faith go very deep. All of the stories and people in the Bible, all of the events recorded there, have shaped my faith and provided a foundation for my life and work. But now I have to do my part and build on the foundation that has been laid. I no longer want to study the Bible as simply the record of God’s work in the past, but to see that my daily sorrows and triumphs are all being added to its pages. The story of God’s love for the people on planet Earth didn’t stop with the book of Acts. The daily choices I make, the battles I fight, are as important as the choices and battles in the Bible.

My day-to-day work doesn’t seem very glamorous: tasks equivalent to lifting heavy stones, setting beams in place, soldering pipes, and untangling wires—all according to the Architect’s plans. But I still need to show up for work, putting my faith into action. Even in those painful times when it seems as though the wrecking ball is doing more tearing down than building up, God is still constructing His kingdom. He is able to use all the invisible, menial, trivial tasks I do as His construction materials.

And what about the future kingdom that God is building, that poster on the construction fence? Judging by the plans
that the Architect has allowed me to glimpse in Scripture, it will be beyond my wildest imagination. The apostle John caught sight of it and wrote, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). As His workers, we can’t always see the details of all the plans for the finished building. But we can bend to the task that He gives us each day, knowing that our day-to-day work matters. He makes no distinction between secular and sacred work. We build in hope and faith, believing in what we cannot see, trusting in the Master’s plan.

In the meantime, the view through the construction fence challenges me to get to work, using the time and the talents that God has given me to build for His glory.

Our flight is boarding. In a flurry of activity, we collect our coats and bags and carry-ons to shuffle up the ramp and onto the airplane. Once I’ve stuffed, stashed, and shoved all of my belongings into place, I sink down in my seat to wait some more. I hate leaving the warm, golden sunlight and spiky palm trees of Israel for cold, snowy Chicago, but whether I like it or not, life brings change.

I see now that the purpose of this pilgrimage wasn’t to give me a mystical, feel-good experience of God but to shake me out of my complacency and downright laziness, to prepare me for what He has in store for me. But before I can change the way I’ve been living, I need to repent and change the way I’ve been thinking. The Hebrew word for repentance means turning around and going in a completely different direction. It means sweeping away all of my old ways of seeing and
thinking and acting, and then carefully, prayerfully replacing them with new ones. For me, it means trying to look at this stage of my life the way that God does, not the way I’ve been viewing it. In other words, I need to prepare for more change.

Maybe the uneasiness I’ve been experiencing at home can be compared to a plant that has become root-bound, forced to live in a pot that’s much too small. Even though the plant has flourished and flowered and borne fruit in the past, it needs to be moved to a larger pot or it will eventually stop growing. The transplanting process is a shock, causing the plant to wilt and pout for a few days after being ripped out of its accustomed place. But soon the roots discover that they have room to grow and stretch, and before long, the tired, worn-out plant begins to send out new shoots, then it blossoms and bears fruit. God wants me to be fruitful. I need a larger pot.

Change is such a huge part of life that we should be used to it by now. Instead, we resist. We’re tearful on the first day of kindergarten, fearful on the first day of high school, overwhelmed as we start college. A new job, a new spouse, a new baby—all of these changes are regular parts of a normal life, yet each of these milestones inaugurates enormous changes. God doesn’t believe in retirement—not in the way I’ve always pictured it, baking cookies and reading stories to my grandchildren and sitting in my comfortable church pew on Sunday. So the question is, am I willing to leave the comfortable, familiar pot where I’m currently languishing and trust God to transplant me to a new one?

Jerusalem University College

Imagine the enormous changes that took place in the lives of Sarah and Abraham when God transplanted them. And how everything changed again after Isaac was born to them at
the ages of ninety and one hundred. And what about Noah? We aren’t told what he did during the early years of his life, but God gave him the new ministry of ark-building at the age of five hundred. Joshua and Caleb began conquering kingdoms at the age of eighty-five. But I probably resemble Moses the most. He seemed quite comfortable tending his sheep at the age of eighty, his family gathered around him—until God stuck a burning bush in his path. Fortunately for all of us, Moses stepped forward to see what this new change was all about, and after some vigorous arguing with God—something I seem to be very good at—Moses moved
to a bigger pot and accepted his calling to lead God’s people out of slavery in Egypt. All of these Old Testament people accepted God’s invitation to walk away from their settled, comfortable lives and begin again.

Just because I have a successful ministry doesn’t mean that God doesn’t have something more—or different—in my future. Little by little, life in the same old pot is killing me, causing my spiritual walk to shrivel and wither. Change will be good for me, not something to fear. It will strip away my self-sufficiency and self-reliance and force me to lean on God, to pray more, to trust Him, and to walk in faith with the One who invented change.

Our jet rumbles slowly forward and moves onto the runway—then, after a suspenseful pause, we roar down the tarmac and lift into the air. My stomach does a little flip during that brief weightless moment when the wheels leave the ground. It takes a lot of fuel, a lot of horsepower to propel this huge aircraft into the air and keep it aloft. And it took this trip—and the power of the Holy Spirit—to lift me off the ground and propel me forward.

I remember teaching our son Ben to walk when he was a baby. He was a quiet, placid child, content to either sit in one place or wait for someone to pick him up and carry him someplace new. He didn’t even try to crawl very far. But Ken and I wanted more for our son than a stunted, baby life, and so we stood him on his feet—ignoring his unhappy protests—and encouraged him to start moving forward. At first we held his hands firmly in ours to keep him from falling. But we knew we couldn’t hold his hands his entire life, so eventually we let
go and moved a little distance away, coaxing him to toddle toward us. Ben was afraid to move. He dropped down on his padded, diapered rump and wailed. Again, we stood him on his feet and moved away. Again, he cried as if to say, “Why are you so far away? Why are you leaving me on my own? I’m scared! I feel abandoned.” We were never far away. We hovered nearby, making sure he was safe, ready to pick him up when he fell. But we knew that this was the best way to teach him to walk on his own.