Tag: Israel

Posted in Through the Bible Devotions

Olive shoots and children

Posted on by William Douthwaite

A “through the bible” devotion from Psalm 128.

Your children will be like olive shoots
    around your table (Psalm 128:3).

When we went to Israel in 2019, our tour guide’s husband owned an olive grove. Since olives are mentioned often in scripture, we took a side trip one day to see a real olive farm.

Our guide made sure we saw shoots growing up from the base of an olive tree. They would soon be trimmed away. But she said, “Look, it’s just like the psalm: olive shoots around the table.”

I loved that moment when ancient words suddenly came to life before my eyes. All of my children have children, olive shoots around their table. And now I understand what a blessing that is. Who knew grand parenting would be such a blessing?

Posted in Through the Bible Devotions

Want to see the pictures from our trip?

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash

A “through the bible” devotion from Numbers 33.

I’m old enough to remember the days when friends would invite you over to see the slides from their most recent trip. For those not old enough to remember, slides were transparent photos you could shine a light through and project onto a screen so a room full of people could all see them. We do the same thing now but on a big screen TV or the little screen of a phone.

Not everyone found travel slides or photographs as interesting as those who took them. But they were an important record of travel. Once I get home, I begin to forget all the places I went and all the things I saw and did. I’m careful now to journal every day of a trip. Alongside photos, this has enabled me to remember trips to Alaska, Israel, Haiti, and most recently, Hawaii.

That’s what Moses does. “These are the stages of the people of Israel, when they went out of the land of Egypt…Moses wrote down their starting places, stage by stage” (Numbers 33:1,2). He writes down the places Israel traveled and camped from their departure from Egypt to their arrival Moab, on the east side of the Jordan River. It’s not exciting reading, but it’s an important chronicle of the journey.

Before my dad died, he showed me pages in a scrapbook that listed everywhere he went while in the United States Army-Air Corps in World War II. He kept a careful record of every school he trained at and every island and atoll he stopped in the south Pacific. I was able to locate all of the places using Google Earth. Some places are nothing more than half an island out in the middle of the ocean. Others are towns in the Philippine Islands. All of them were far from home.

I’m glad he wrote it all down. When his ninety-year old memory began to fail, his part of United States and world history remained intact. Just like the nation of Israel, who often forgot about God and the amazing things he had done for them.

Posted in Through the Bible Devotions

A lesson in cleanliness

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Curology on Unsplash

A “through the bible” devotion from Leviticus 15.

“Supper’s ready!”

My brother, sister, and I all thundered down the stairs and took our assigned places at the dining room table.

“Did you wash your hands?”

My brother, sister, and I all scrambled for the bathrooms, one upstairs, one down, to wash our hands.

When we returned to the table, there were follow up questions.

“Did you use soap?” “Did you wash both sides of your hands?” Mom was no dummy. She knew we had much to learn about cleanliness.

So did God’s people in Leviticus 15. Here’s a whole chapter of instructions about washing and bathing that I take for granted. You can read all the details there. I have to remind myself that they didn’t have indoor plumbing with clean, running water. Even if I’m camping I usually have access to showers and a laundry room. Hygiene was different in the wilderness on the way from Egypt to Canaan.

When I traveled to Haiti to help with earthquake recovery in 2010, I saw the expansive tent city populated by hundreds of thousands of people outside of Port-au-Prince. There were no bathrooms or running water. Garbage was piled high. Sewage ran down the street. Clothes were washed in dirty streams. Survival meant there was little if any cleanliness, and a lot of disease.

Tent city

A community like that can’t survive. Without the oversight of the priests, I doubt that Israel would have survived very long either. God’s no dummy. He knew his people had a lot to learn about cleanliness, too.

I learned a lot about cleanliness during the Covid pandemic. I washed my hands more that year than ever before. Both sides! I reached for hand sanitizer at every opportunity. I wiped down everything.

By the grace of God we survived!

Posted in Through the Bible Devotions

We’re number one!

Posted on by William Douthwaite

A “through the bible” devotion from Exodus 15.

I got my first taste of marching band in seventh grade. Most of us had two years of instrument lessons and elementary band experience when we took the field for the fall football season. The first thing we learned was how to march “eight to five” (eight steps for every five yards). Second, we learned the school fight song, which I later learned was the Notre Dame fight song. Pretty much every junior high marching band adopted that fight song for their own. Those who didn’t used “On Wisconsin.”

The first song in the bible is a fight song (Exodus 15:1-18), sung by Moses and the people of Israel after God routs the Egyptians in the Red Sea (Exodus 14). As I read it, I hear shouts of victory and proclamations of “We’re number one!”

While fans exhibit religious devotion for a favorite sports team, few worshipers want church to sound like a football game. Having said that, churches do sing about our powerful God and victory over the opposition. The crowds celebrated Saul’s and David’s military victories with songs (1 Samuel 18:7). I always imagine that scene to be like a stadium full of soccer fans, chanting and waving huge flags. Later, David sings about offering up sacrifices with shouts of joy (Psalm 27). Even God, a victorious warrior, rejoices over his people with shouts of joy (Zephaniah 3:17).

We’ve toned it down for most of our worship services. But no one can turn down the volume when every creature in heaven and on earth praises the Lord (Revelation 5:11-14)!

Posted in Through the Bible Devotions

It’s on your calendar

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash

A “through the bible” devotion from Exodus 13.

I have my AC company come out and tune up my system twice a year. I called them up to schedule the service and wrote it on my calendar. As soon as I ended the call, I got a text message confirming the appointment. I also got an email.

The day before they were scheduled to arrive, I got another text message, an email, and a voicemail, reminding me of the service call.

The morning of the schedule service, I got a text and a voicemail reminding me they were coming. I then got a text when the tech was on his way and then another when he was in my neighborhood.

The final text message informed me that he had arrived at my house.

Clearly, someone wants me to remember this very important appointment!

I get similar attention from my dentist, doctors, and the veterinarian. It must be a sign of the times. Patients and clients don’t remember, don’t put it on their calendar, and don’t show up for an appointment.

This is not a new phenomenon. A long time ago, so that the people wouldn’t forget what God did for them, he instructed them to put it on their calendar. “Remember this day in which you departed from Egypt…you shall keep this ordinance at its appointed time from year to year” (Exodus 13:3,10).

Now maybe you’re thinking, “How could God’s people ever forget how he got them out of Egypt with displays of his power?” And yet, you’re doubts, fears, guilt, and shame make you forget the salvation won for you by Christ on the cross.

So God puts it on your calendar. A birthday to remind you of your creator. A Sunday to remind you of your Savior (He is not here; he is risen!) A doctor’s appointment to remind you of God’s healing power. Lunch with a friend to remind us we weren’t created to be alone. A funeral to remind you there’s so much life yet to come.

Any and all of these can get lost in the busyness and distractions of life. So God sneaks all these days into your calendar!

Posted in Devotions, Through the Bible Devotions

Wrestling with God

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Chris Chow on Unsplash

A “through the bible” devotion from Genesis 32.

I vividly remember wrestling with all of my three children. They were toddlers, and I would lie on the floor, hug them to my chest, and roll back and forth saying, “Wrestlin’, wrestlin’, wrestlin’!” Of course, I didn’t use even a fraction of my strength. I wasn’t in it to win, but to enjoy some silly dad time with them. The giggles were the best part.

“Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.” 

In the heat of the moment, Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

When it was all over, “Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, ‘I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.'” (Genesis 32:24-30)

I think it’s fascinating that Jacob tries to wrestle a blessing out of God. Jacob’s life is filled with God’s blessing. He ran away from home with nothing, and returns with all kinds of family and flocks, plus the same covenant promises of God given to his grandfather Abraham.

The Almighty doesn’t use a fraction of his strength, and lets Jacob hold on all night. In the morning, Jacob realizes he’s been wrestling with God, and he lived to tell about it. That in itself is a pretty great blessing!

How often do I try to wrestle a blessing out of God rather than recognizing all the things he’s already given?

Posted in Israel

Water flowing

Posted on by William Douthwaite

I love this picture. It is one of my favorites from our trip to Israel. I took this picture at the Church of the Beatitudes, possibly the site where Jesus taught the Sermon on the Mount beginning in Matthew 5.

The streams flowing from the altar reminded me of two bible passages:

“Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar” (Ezekiel 47:1).

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Revelation 22:1).

In that moment, I felt like I was there. In between the ancient prophecy of Ezekiel and the not-yet visions of Revelation, I was captivated by the streams of life-giving water flowing from the altar. Jesus died and rose so that I might have life in the waters of my baptism. For me, this was a breath-taking moment to remember.

Yes, I felt blessed The mosaic words capture the moment well: “Praise to you, O Christ!”

Posted in Israel

En Gedi: these caves look like the real thing

Posted on by William Douthwaite

On our way home from a day at the Dead Sea, we had the chance to stop at En Gedi, a place of springs and caves where David hid while running away from King Saul. Saul was so jealous of David’s popularity that he tried several time to kill him. David found refuge in this place where only ibex usually leapt up and down the cliffs.

After visiting so many places of Jesus’ ministry that had been built over with churches, shrines, traditions and souvenir shops, my wife and I found this place to be quite different. Looking up at the caves on the nearly vertical cliffs, she said, “This seems like the real thing.” There was nothing artificial or modern about this oasis. We could imagine just hard it would have been to look for and find David and his army in a place like this. Standing beneath the waterfall, I could imagine just how refreshing it must have been to find a place like this out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but the starkest wilderness.

Where would you go if you had to run for your life? Where would you hide if you didn’t want to be found? Would it even be possible in our time to be off the grid like David?

Posted in Israel

I spy…all kinds of things

Posted on by William Douthwaite
A rooftop just below the house of Caiaphas

We had just been in Caiaphas’ house. We had just descended into the sub-basement, the “pit” as it were, where Jesus may have been held while awaiting his first trial before the high priest. I had just read Psalm 69 to our group, remembering who to look to when we feel like we are in “the pit.” We climbed back out of the pit, passed by a place which could have been where Peter denied knowing Jesus three times.

I casually looked down from the courtyard where we were standing and saw a rooftop piled with all kinds of trash. In the picture you can see

  • A shopping cart
  • Milk crates
  • Scooters
  • A door
  • Five gallon buckets
  • Wicker shelves
  • Wood pallets
  • Barbed wire
  • Bicycles
  • A wheelbarrow
  • Tires and wheels
  • Refrigerator
  • Rake
  • Washing machine
  • Cememt mixer (?)
  • Dish antenna
  • Rebar and cinderblocks
  • Skateboard

You might be able to pick out even more discarded items. I’ll bet there are stories for each of the things that someone either tossed onto or carried up to the roof.

The reality of present day trash interrupted my meditations on the arrest and trial of Jesus, which led to his suffering and death on the cross. Then again, I’m sure they had a lot of refuse at Jesus’ time, too.

Our street looks like this on trash days. But we also put out furniture, mowers and trimmers and mattresses. I guess the age old question has always been, “What are we going to do with all this trash?”