A New Adventure

Sometimes, when people ask me what I like to do, one of the things I'll answer is "travel!" They continue on to ask me, "Oh? Where have you been?" And that's when I have to answer... "Well... nowhere really... but I know I would love it if I ever had the chance!"

Now, tomorrow, is when I leave home to go overseas for the first time. I will be traveling to Israel with 15 other 17-26 year olds for an adventure of a lifetime. I long for adventure and now I'm finally getting the chance to explore the land I've been longing to go for a long time now.

Being Jewish, I have always longed to travel to the land of my people. Nothing excites me more than to be able to walk where Jesus walked and see firsthand the places in the Bible. I am a visual learner and I think it will really help to be able to visualize each place that I read about. I like to think of myself as an adventurous person. I mean, we only live once, right? I want to make the most of it.

But you know what's even better about this trip than having an adventure? This trip will give me the opportunity to show God's love. God's love! "Each of us was created by God for relationship with Him, but we can only enjoy that relationship by God's grace. God's great love for us, demonstrated in Christ Jesus, initiates our response. The only reasonable and adequate response is our expression of worship. As we worship God, God has promised His presence. We can always experience God in worship." This trip, I pray, will be an act of worship to God my Savior. I pray that God will work through me in ways I can't even imagine and I pray that God will work in me in ways that I would never believe. This trip is way more than just an adventure. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity to grow in His love and to exemplify it to the world.

Imagine a world that is completely green. Everyone dresses in green, everyone looks the same. But one person is dressed in pink camouflage. No matter how hard that person tries, pink camouflage will never fit in with the green world. I want to be that person. I want to show God's love in a way that people see a difference from the way I live to the way that the world lives. I don't want to fit in with the ways of the world. I want to follow Jesus in a way that stands out. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. This is what this trip is about. God's love. Not only sharing it, but experiencing it more and more myself.

That's the great thing about God's love. It never diminishes. It never gets tired. It only grows.

This is my prayer for this trip. To experience God's love like I have never experienced it before. To learn more about God's love in ways I have never known. To share God's love so that people notice the joy that it can give.

So, for this trip my prayer will be the same as Paul's. "I pray that out of his glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:15-19).