Reflections and Blog

Has God Answered My Prayer? Part 2

How do you know if God has answered your prayer? In last week’s blog post, we saw that one error we can fall into as Christians is to believe that God has answered our prayer and given us the good for which we have asked when he hasn’t. Circumstances might line up in remarkable ways…

Has God Answered My Prayer? Part 1

As I’ve thought more about the messages on prayer over the last two weeks, I found myself also considering this question: how do I know when God has answered my prayer? Perhaps the answer to that question seems so obvious that you’ve never even bothered to ask the question. However, if we’re not careful, we…

Work vs. Prayer

Have you ever said to yourself, “I have so much work to do that I do not have time to pray,”? We probably all have at one time or another. Yet, in thinking this way, we greatly overestimate our own ability to make things happen and greatly underestimate God’s ability to do the same. Solomon’s…

Israel Study Trip: Ten Reflections

We have safely made it back to the USA! Thank you for your prayers. Now that the TMS Israel study trip has come to an end, I’ve not only started sorting through all the pictures we took but also started thinking through all that we experienced. Though I know it will take time to process…

Israel Study Trip Day 19 (and 20): Roadblocks

Shalom! We had to change our plan for today due to rising tensions between Israelis and Palestinians ahead of Jerusalem Day tomorrow, May 29. We had planned to go north to visit Jacob’s Well, Shechem, and Sebastia (biblical Samaria). However, when we tried to travel through certain Palestinian communities where protests or riots have recently…

Israel Study Trip Day 18: Shiloh Dig

Shalom! Today was a special day in our study trip; we got to take part in a real archaeological dig! It was another warm day, so we tried to finish the majority of our activity in the morning. Here are a few highlights. Shiloh In the morning, we drove northeast into the West Bank to…

Israel Study Trip Day 17: Jordan Rift Valley

Shalom! Today we left Galilee to explore the Jordan Rift Valley, that is, the land beside the Jordan River as the river flows out of Galilee and toward the Dead Sea. It was a very hot day (over 100 degrees in the valley!), so we had to be strategic about how much time we spent…

Israel Study Trip Day 16: Hula Valley and Golan Heights

Shalom! Today we traveled north of Galilee to the Hula Valley and east to the Golan Heights (biblical Bashan). It was a warm day with clear skies. Here are a few highlights: Hazor One of the first stops of the day was Tel Hazor. Hazor was the largest city in Canaan when Israel invaded under…

Israel Study Trip Day 15: Sea of Galilee

Shalom! Our stops today were all focused on the Sea of Galilee, the freshwater lake around which much of Jesus’ ministry took place as recorded in the Gospels. Here are a few highlights: Capernaum Our first visit of the morning was to ancient Capernaum, the city to which Jesus moved from Nazareth early in his…

Israel Study Trip Day 14: Into Galilee

Shalom! Today was another beautiful day: some clouds, breezy, upper 70s. We explored Lower Galilee (not much happened in Upper Galilee in Bible times) as we made our way from Nazareth to Ein Ged on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee. Here are a few highlights: Nazareth We started the day by visiting…