A Good Kind of Jealous

(Minor side note before I get started: in my last post I briefly mentioned child sacrifices... Just to clarify, the city of Megiddo was conquered and rebuilt 25 separate times throughout its existence! The people who lived there and made those particular kinds of sacrifices were not Christians and they were directed to pagan gods.) 

Day 3 dawned gloomy and cold.  (Which was funny because the night before Jeremy had encouraged us all to wear shorts the next day!)  I am glad I made the decision not to though because we were up quite high in elevation and the wind was blowing.  I was wearing all the layers I had brought with me on the trip and was still shivering!  The wind just cut right through.  Our first stop of the day was up in the Golan Heights.  We connected with the owners of an off-road tour company. The itinerary had mentioned that we might be taking a Jeep tour but the picture below shows quite obviously that we did not end up in Jeeps. They provided us instead with these ATV-style vehicles called "TomCars" which are possibly more effective than actual Jeeps at off road travel.  The shocks on these vehicles were so efficient that you could drive over a pothole or a giant rock and not feel a thing.   The only problem was that they were open body vehicles and so the cold became worse while we were moving.  

I volunteered to drive first!  I was in a vehicle with 3 other women.  Halfway through the tour we stopped at an abandoned building.  The tour leaders had us go up inside the building.  They told us it was an old Soviet building which had been lent to the Syrians while the land was under their control but then the Israeli's took the building back when they re-acquired the land.  It has since sat empty because at some point it had been attacked with artillery and was no longer inhabitable.  Our guide gave us a wonderful summary of the Arab/Israeli conflict while we were standing around an open window looking across at the Syrian border!  The reason he said he feels so safe so close to the border is because of Israel's far superior military capabilities and technology. 

Not pictured in this blog is the Olive Oil factory that we visited after the "Jeep" tour.  Needless to say I purchased a souvenir there so that will take the place of a picture.  After that we had lunch in a Druze restaurant.  I forget if I already mentioned this, but Jeremy explained to us that the Druze are an Arabic religious group in Israel. Their beliefs may indeed be a bit strange but their food is out of this world!  I tried fried falafel and lamb kebabs at lunch and both were fantastic!

After lunch we went to another national park. We visited Caesarea Philippi.  Here we listened to Carl preach out of Matthew 16.  One particular part of that passage stood out as extremely interesting.  Jesus said that upon "this rock" his kingdom would be built and that the "gates of Hades" would not be able to stand against it.  The "rock" referenced was most likely the mountain we were sitting next to at Caesarea Philippi and the cave located in the mountain was historically called Hades by the locals who worshiped there! They believed that their gods lived in the cave and that they had to pray to certain idols and perform certain rites to awaken their gods and entice them to send rain for their crops.  (Pictured left are little niches carved into the mountain where their idols would stand to be worshiped.)

 Leaving Caesarea, we continued on to Tel Dan where we went hiking.  Part way through the hike we stopped again and heard a passage read from 1 Kings about Jeroboam building a golden calf for his people to worship.  (Are you sensing a theme here?) Pictured at right is the actual altar where the calf was placed and where people would come to sacrifice animals to the fake god.

Our hike through Tel Dan also included views of the Jordan River which originates there and some beautiful views of the country side.  In the foreground of the photo below are military trenches leftover from when there was fighting over the country's borders.  Jeremy pointed down to a dirt road just below the trenches and told us that we were looking at Syria!  He marked out visually where the borders of Lebanon and Syria and Israel are today.  It was really quite remarkable how precise they are.  So much so that a single town is split in half between Israel and Lebanon!

I have been reflecting on how I wish that idols today were as obvious and physically represented as they were back in Bible times.  I can't help but think that we might be able to recognize them more quickly for what they are and destroy them more efficiently than our modern, abstract idols of the heart.  But then again, we might choose to set them up anyway.  In our sin our hearts wander so far away from their true purpose.  Without our sinful tendencies though we might not ever recognize or appreciate the crazy, jealous love of our God (a good jealous, that is). So could sin, if it eventually leads us closer to God than we could have been without it, actually be a good thing in a way? Until next time, chew on that.......