A DAY IN THE LIFE: Bema Trip

For a summary of what I’m hoping to accomplish in this blog series (in the second week of every month of 2018), I recommend reviewing my explanation here.

I have recently returned from my third student trip to Israel and Turkey. I call these study tours “BEMA Trips” as they are a part of my larger BEMA Discipleship program. I try to lead study tours every other year as an opportunity to allow students to engage the world of the Bible experientially. If you followed the other series on my blog this year, you might remember this post on MODE for Impact Campus Ministries. The BEMA Trips are a great example of how I try to pursue MODE with my students.

This year (2018) was the final instance of a combined trip to Israel and Turkey. The three-week experience was an incredible time — designed for students who only had one opportunity to do this and limited funding, the bang-for-the-buck of one trip ($5800) was something that couldn’t be beat by the price (and time commitment) needed for two separate trips ($4300 each). However, as my job has taken me further from students, and as I have lost a scholarship fund that allowed me to give out $50,000 of support to students who wanted to go, I have needed to shift my focus.

In the future, we are planning for two groups on separate trips to Israel and Turkey. While this will be more expensive, it will be much more feasible for the typical participant who has a job and can’t get three weeks off of work. It will also enable us to have different focuses for each trip. Everything being said, the trip participants are pretty tired by the time they approach the end of a three-week adventure where we hike 7–12 miles a day with over 1800 feet of elevation change. We are beat up physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Oh, but we are also filled up like never before. It is an opportunity that I thank God for every year. It really is my version of living the dream and I am blessed beyond belief to have the opportunity to do it!

But if this is something that only happens once every other year, is it really something that belongs in the A DAY IN THE LIFE series? The answer is yes, because of all the ongoing work needed to make these trips a reality.

After I return from a trip, I commit to my participants one year of focused, pastoral follow-up. I want to use my experience and the experience of my past alumni to help students make the most of their opportunity, so I will offer them some provocative guidance to help stimulate growth and appropriate responses (e.g., new habits, new community, new disciples) in their lives. I will also be available to them should they need to ask questions or wrestle with new efforts to become a more devoted follower of our Rabbi.

As that year comes to a close (and even a little before), I begin recruiting for our next trip. When we are ten months out, we open official registration and I am busy collecting information, paperwork, funding, and sending our preparation videos for those participants. Simply put, I am always doing something in preparation for or in response to a BEMA Trip.

Want to experience a little taste of our trip? I made a video with some snippets from each day of our last time in Israel and Turkey. (I even remembered to shoot a few introduction videos in Israel!)

Top 12 of CiHD: #4

For a summary of what I’m hoping to accomplish in this blog series (the first week of every month of 2018), I recommend reviewing my explanation here.

This month in the Top 12 Blog Posts at Covered in His Dust, we’ll look at the fourth most viewed post. Sort of. You see, when I constructed my “Top 12” list in January, I apparently did not count well, because I ended up with a baker’s dozen. (Hey, cut me some slack — they didn’t make me do math in bible college!) So in order to make the list work, I’m going to talk about two posts that go together here at #4. Surprisingly, they were both about trees of the desert. The first was called “Trees of the Desert: ACACIA” (you can find it here), and the second was called “Trees of the Desert: AR’AR & TAMARISK” (you can find it here).

In this series, as we look at each post, I want to ask three questions: why, what, and what else? Why do I think these posts got so many views; why were others drawn to them? What do I hope people found when they got here; what do I hope they heard? Finally, what else have I learned about this; what else would I say about these ideas?

WHY THIS POST?

I would assume that these posts got so many hits because of the tree names. But not only did we get biblical interest in the posts, we also had some other key search engine words in the titles, like “desert.” At the core, though, we had trees that would have been very commonly searched for: acacia tree and tamarisk tree. There would have been much interest for these trees beyond the biblical content, so that probably skewed our results for the “fourth-most-viewed blog post.”

However, I would say that these lessons continue to be some of the most poignant that I teach to my students. I can remember how these lessons hit me originally. The word pictures contained in these lessons are so strong and visually profound that they were stunning to learn in their context. Obviously, the lessons of the desert are so meaningful for so many of us because the “deserts” of our lives are so defining and shaping. Anything that helps us relate to and understand these experiences is powerful.

Even though the newness of those lessons has worn off for me, the power of them in the lives of others hearing them for the first time is still significant. I have recently returned from a trip to Israel and Turkey where the first few days are filled with time in the desert. These lessons still impact the trip participants in the same way they impacted me years ago. So maybe all of those page views aren’t coming from a bunch of botany enthusiasts on Google.

WHAT DO I HOPE THEY FOUND?

I hope the reader found encouragement in their deserts. For too many of us, deserts are just a metaphor for our spiritual experiences. I can vouch for the ability to walk through the deserts of the Bible and the ability to connect those very real physical experiences with very real spiritual seasons in our lives. The connection is palpable and the images of the desert provide comfort that words, explanations, and theology just cannot. In a sense, these physical pictures are like God’s “artwork.” One of the profound things about art is its ability to speak and communicate things that words cannot. I find the same to be true about the images of the desert. I hope, for instance, that people can put up a picture of an acacia tree (whether literally or figuratively) and let it remind them of the reasons why we walk the path of spiritual practice with faithfulness.

I also hope the lessons give the reader a call not just to receive the comfort of God in the desert, but to physically participate in that comfort for other people. So often the fruit we bear, the shade we provide, the tamarisks trees we plant for others — these are things that we experienced once from God in our deserts, but the experience also equipped us to be able to serve others in those same places. Oftentimes we received the desert provision of God through other people. Why not be that desert provision — the vehicle God uses — for others?

WHAT ELSE WOULD I SAY?

For one, I might be more quick to point out how thick the debate is about identifying these trees in real life from the ancient Hebrew. I was recently reading a book about the botany of the Bible and realized how many of their conclusions differed from the lessons I was taught. Like I stated in the first “Trees of the Desert” post, I based my work on the conclusions of Nogah Hareuveni, who in many circles is considered the leading authority on the plants of the biblical world. I have been told that his work is still the textbook for studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Anything else I would say is probably best consumed by listening to my most recent work through the BEMA Discipleship podcast. I spent time discussing this in Session 1 about Torah. You can find that specific podcast in iTunes or by going to this link. If the conversation about acacia trees and spiritual discipline intrigues you, I would recommend listening to this conversation and a follow-up conversation here.

PULL UP A CHAIR: Stories on Mode

For a summary of what I’m hoping to accomplish in this blog series (in the fourth week of every month of 2018), I recommend reviewing my explanation here.

Zack Dean is the team leader for Impact Campus Ministries at our location at SUNY Albany. Being an alumni of that university and our campus ministry there has always given Zack a unique perspective. None of this should take away from the fact that Zack is such a unique person! Zack has been on two BEMA Trips and was able to take his wife Melanie on the most recent trip in 2016. I thought it would be insightful to ask Zack about his perspective of "MODE" as it pertains to his experiences in Israel and Turkey.

In July of 2014, a conflict between Israel and the Gaza Strip began. Within a week, I and 25 others landed in Tel Aviv and traveled south to the Negev Desert to begin the first Bema trip to Israel and Turkey. After 24 hours of air conditioned train, plane, and automobile travel, we were dropped off in the desert wilderness. I used to live in the Mohave Desert in California. I was used to jackrabbits, Joshua trees, cactus, and tumbleweeds. You know, desert. It’s a dry heat, so it isn’t as bad.

This wasn’t southern California.

There aren’t jackrabbits or Joshua trees or cactuses (cacti?). There is nothing. No plants. No animals. No shade. No water. There aren’t tumbleweeds, because there aren’t plants that grow then die and roll around.

The heat was terrific. It was the type of heat that is impressive when you first feel it; we stepped out of the bus at 9am and said wow. The sun is beating down and the rock is radiating heat up. There is no escape. Again, it is 9am. Wow.

I think Marty wanted to take it easy on us the first day. We walked the desert with what will later be seen as minimal hill climbing. As we walked this scorched earth, our shoes began to fall apart. Literally. Our soles were peeling away. Some people pulled out tape to try to coble their shoes back together, while other people started vomiting. People were coming close to passing out... from walking flat terrain.

The condition of our group was unexpected. Here we are, people who have trained to hike 7-12 miles a day while hiking thousands of feet of elevation change each day, prepared for an intense trip.

We were ready.

Day 1: We were falling apart walking on flat ground.

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wildernessthese forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was inyour heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbledyou, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, whichneither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does notlive on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth ofthe LORD. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell duringthese forty years. 

Deuteronomy 8:2-4 

Today as we look at Mode from the Mx3, we look at how we open the story of God for students. Mode is defined as engaging the mind, heart, and body.

As I read this passage from Deuteronomy, I see that God takes care of His people. Intellectually, I know that our God is good and takes care of His people. That has been taught to me. It is clear from scripture. This has engaged my mind.

I used to live in the desert, so I can relate to the toughness of desert living. Our air conditioned home was on the edge of town. When we drove to the store for food, it was hot as I walked between the air-conditioned grocery store and the air- conditioned car (at home we parked in the attached garage because we aren’t animals and didn’t deal with the heat if we didn’t have to). My heart can be engaged because I can relate to the situation more than just intellectually. I have lived in similar situations as the Israelites walking the desert for 40 years...

The Bema Trip is an experience of engaging the body. I knew God took care of His people. I knew what it was like to be in the desert. Going to the Negev Desert and learning from experience why people accept lying down and dying changes the whole idea of what that passage is talking about. On day one, our shoes had fallen apart. God took care of their clothes for 40 years and mine only lasted a few hours? There is no food of any kind, or water or anything. God provided food on these hot rocks? It is hot enough to bake bread, so that makes sense.

If I were to just walk this desert, my shoes would fall apart. I would be hot and tired. I would be feeling all the same things. My body would be engaged, but that’s it. Only one aspect of mode isn’t the best way to teach or learn. Without engaging the mind and heart, without knowing the story of how God watches over His people who would normally struggle to survive, the lesson is missed.

If I know the story of God in my mind, if I can engage my heart and emotion to empathize with the people of the text, and if I engage my body by trying to step into their world, I will learn in a way that I’ll remember for years to come.

I know this to be true, because the mind, heart, and body engagement of the Bema trip has been life changing. Four years later, I still talk about it all the time. It still influences how I understand the narrative of scripture. I have spoken about it so much that two years after the inaugural Bema Trip, I brought four people with me as I went on the trip again in 2016. This year, 2018, someone who I brought is sending a friend of his on the Bema trip. Life change is infectious.

We might not all lead trips to Israel, but we can all find ways to engage the mind, heart, and body. When we teach and learn about the biblical prerogative to care for the alien, orphan, and widow, we can remember a time when we were seen as an outsider. We can engage the body to serve these people who are marginalized in a multitude of ways in our hometowns.

The mode in how we teach is greatly important. Each mode by itself can be good, yet incomplete. The best and most difficult mode is to combine all three, but it is also the greatest experience for both the teacher and the student.

MAKING AN IMPACT: Mode

For a summary of what I’m hoping to accomplish in this blog series (in the third week of every month of 2018), I recommend reviewing my explanation here.

We have spoken about our purpose at Impact Campus Ministries; we exist to make disciples who make disciples. In light of this, we started with our definition of disciple and the method of discipleship. We want to allow people to become submitted to Jesus by inviting them to imitate a mentor who is imitating Jesus.

We have spoken of ICM’s mission statement: to pursue, model, and teach intimacy with Christ within the context of Christian community on the American university campus. This led us to taking the time to define those three terms — pursue, model, and teach. We spoke of pursuit being the way we intentionally engage in spiritual practices. We spoke of model being the way we pursue God in front of others so they can physically see what it looks like. Then we talked about teach being so important, because as we instruct our students in furthering the discipleship process, we are enabling them to do so much more than simply mimic the actions — we are allowing them to possess the truths for themselves.

When we speak about imitating a mentor who imitates Jesus (our purpose), we see that road map of imitation laid out in our mission statement.

In the most recent post of this series, we began walking through the idea of message, mode, and milieu. This is what enables us to become more effective in chasing our vision — Impact the U, Impact the World. Hopefully the reader can see how these are building blocks that allow us to create an approach to ministry that is more and more effective in reaching our goals. One of those things is message; this is the idea that we need to be able to understand the narrative arc of the Text as just that — a narrative.

The next word that shows up for ICM is MODE. Gifted to us by our last president, Bill Westfall, and the work he did during his dissertation, the idea is simply this: Young adults (particularly college students) learn much better when we can stimulate their mind, heart, and body. On some level, I feel ill-equipped to write about this idea as Bill was the one who did all the research, but the idea makes perfect sense to me and resonates with my experience as a teacher and campus minister.

I’m not sure if this has been true for all generations or not. I have a hunch that on some level, this has always been true. And yet, the research concludes this is even more true with this generation than was typical in the past. There are many hunches as to why this is, from the impact of technology on our culture to the very physiology of our children. But the truth remains: If you can holistically engage the learner, simultaneously impacting every part of their self, the learning is deeper, more retentive, and more powerful.

One of the best ways I can talk about this personally is describing my biennial trip to Israel and Turkey. Every other year, I take a group of students to wander around the Middle East for a few weeks. All the things you would expect to happen are going to happen. We are going to take lots of pictures, learn lots of information, and see lots of famous places. But the trip is so much more than a tourist experience.

On our study tours, my goal is to help students experience the lessons that the biblical story is trying to teach us. A great example is the time of Israel wandering in the desert. I take my students and drag them into the Negev and Paran deserts of southern Israel. I purposely take this trip in August so it is as hot as it will be all year. (I have been in the Negev with students in 117-degree heat.) I do this on purpose because I want to teach them (intellectually, this is the mind) about the Negev and the experience of the desert. I want them to feel (physically, this is the body) the heat and the thirst and the hopelessness of it all. I then want them to connect with the struggle of those ancient Israelites as they cry out for water — and then make the connections to the deserts they have experienced in their own lives (emotionally, this is the heart).

If this is done correctly, the student will learn a lesson, have a mental image, and experience a heart tug that will forever change their walk with God. We attempt to do this over and over again, multiple times a day, day after day for three weeks. I can speak from personal experience to how effective and life-changing this learning style is. I have been with over twenty seminary-trained and graduate-level participants who all said they got more out of two weeks in Israel then in four years of seminary.

Why is this method so impactful? Because it engages the whole person and doesn’t just pursue a transfer of data. It instead creates a complete learning package where nothing is wasted and everything is loaded with potential.

Realizing we don’t drag people around the world every day, we must do the hard work of figuring out how to pursue this kind of engagement in our day-to-day environments. It is difficult, but it is also very rewarding when it’s successful. May we strive to settle less and less for classroom-style teaching (although it certainly has its place) and emotionally manipulative moments. May we create big, holistic moments of learning where the entire student is engaged in the lesson.

Narrow Gates and Foolish Men

At this point, I want to deal with two of Jesus’s final three teachings in this section we call the Sermon on the Mount. Specifically, I want to deal with the first and the last teaching of these three, as the second teaching warrants a full post for itself.

The next picture of Jesus is one about wide roads and narrow gates.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

There are a couple observations about this teaching right off the bat. Jesus does not connect this teaching to salvation and there is no implication that Jesus is speaking of eternal destinies. On the contrary, the context of Jesus’s teaching (not to mention the tense He uses in His speech) in this sermon would demand the opposite assumption. This teaching speaks directly to how we find and experience both life and destruction TODAY, not later. The invitation is to find the narrow gate today, because it will be easy to find the road that leads to destruction. Furthermore, the point of Jesus’s teaching is not HOW MANY PEOPLE, but instead the ease at which these two options come. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard this used to talk about how few people will make it to heaven and how many will be destined to hell. Please notice that Jesus’s point has nothing to do with this.

I once heard a teaching by Rob Bell at Mars Hill Bible Church that really helped me understand this better. While he connected it to a local interchange in Michigan, I immediately connected it in my mind to the interchange that exists in the Tri-Cities of Washington (Richmond, Kennewick, Pasco). There is one particular interchange that leads to a precarious — at times impossible — lane change a driver must make in order to connect with the appropriate highway. The onramp puts the driver on the left side of the interstate, needing to change three lanes to make the exit on the RIGHT side of the interstate, moving 50+ mph, all within a distance of a couple hundred yards.

You have to be fully engaged in your task. You have to be completely intentional about your decisions. You have to be resolutely set on making your exit.

For narrow is way that leads to Pendleton and few can find it, but wide is the road that leads to Portland, and many are driving it.

You get the idea. The way leading to life is difficult. You don’t just stumble upon it without trying. The way leading to life will require your intentional resolution to find peace in the midst of chaos.

The second teaching will be discussed in our next post, but Jesus’s final picture is of a fool who builds his house on sand and a wise man who builds his house on the rock.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

While most teachings I’ve heard focus on the material used for the building, I have been told by contractors that sand is a very useful building material. It’s easy to transport, it packs well, and is used in most building projects. This begins to point us to the fact that we may be missing the “big idea” in this teaching. There are two understandings of sand in Jesus’s day. There is the “sand of the seashore”; this is not the sand that is being referenced here. Then, there is the sand that settles in the bottom of a wadi after the floodwaters come.

Now, I’ll say that again. The sand settles at the bottom of the wadi.

Only a fool would build his house at the bottom of a wadi; it would be a ticking time bomb, just waiting for the next rainfall. However, the wise man would build his house on the “rock” — the word here refers to bedrock or a cliff face — where they would be far away from the dangers of desert floods. While the point of the teaching remains the same, the picture’s details now work correctly. The rains fell and the floodwaters rose. Jesus is saying that even though his teachings are at times counter-intuitive, you would be foolish not to put them into practice. For the way of Jesus is the best way to live.

It prompts the reader to reflect on just how seriously we take the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. Do we trust forgiveness? If we don’t, it’s like building your house at the bottom of a wadi. Do we love our enemies? If not, we are asking for the rains of destruction to dismantle our life.

It’s the continual invitation to trust the story.

How to Bring Order Out of Chaos

Immediately following the baptism of Jesus, He is driven out into the wilderness by the Spirit. Here, Jesus is tested as the Israelites were tested in the wilderness. This time, however, the situation will be a little different. But before we go there, let’s go back to the beginning.

The very beginning.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty…

Tohu va’vohu, we once said. Formless and void; wild and waste. If you put nothing into a blender and hit “whip.” Chaotic nothingness. Chaos.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

The word for “spirit” in the Hebrew is ruach. Ruach is used for “spirit” and “breath” and “wind.” Surprisingly, the same three words are interchangeable in the Greek, as well; the word is pnuema and it means “spirit/breath/wind.”

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light…

God speaks and order begins to come from the chaos. God places man in the center of this story and invites him to partner with the Creator in managing, stewarding, exploring, and enjoying this new order. But this partnership is tested, and, as we all know, the testing ends in great tragedy.

If we break down this story of creation, it centers around chaotic waters. Large bodies of water always symbolize chaos (and eventually evil) in the Jewish mind. We could whittle the story of creation down to this:

CHAOS
WATER
SPIRIT OVER WATER
GOD’S SPOKEN WORD
ORDER IS EXPECTATION
TESTING/TEMPTATION >> TRAGEDY


What is the next story with large bodies of water? The flood. Consider the list above in light of the story of the flood:

CHAOS — The world had descended into chaos.
WATER — God covers the world in chaos.
SPIRIT OVER WATER — The ruach blows over the water and the water begins to recede.
GOD’S SPOKEN WORD — God speaks to Noah, commanding him to come out of the ark and…
ORDER IS EXPECTATION — …partner with God to bring order to chaos.
TESTING/TEMPTATION >> TRAGEDY — But this partnership is tested and ends in tragedy.


What is the next story with large bodies of water? The exodus from Egypt.

CHAOS — The Israelites had descended into chaos.
WATER — The Red Sea stands between them and order.
SPIRIT OVER WATER — The ruach blows over the water and the water divides.
GOD’S SPOKEN WORD — God speaks to Moses (either at the Red Sea or Mt. Sinai, you pick) and sets up a…
ORDER IS EXPECTATION — …partnership with God to bring order to chaos.
TESTING/TEMPTATION >> TRAGEDY — But this partnership is tested and ends in tragedy (whether this is the testing in the desert or the Golden Calf).


What is the next story of large bodies of water? The crossing of the Jordan.

CHAOS — The land of Canaan had descended into chaos.
WATER — The Jordan River stands between the Israelites and order.
SPIRIT OVER WATER — The ruach blows over the water and the water is stopped up.
GOD’S SPOKEN WORD — God speaks to Joshua and asks His people to…
ORDER IS EXPECTATION — …partner with God to bring order to chaos.
TESTING/TEMPTATION >> TRAGEDY — But this partnership is tested at Jericho and ends in tragedy as Achan refuses to follow instructions.


It’s my hope that we’re seeing a pattern, yes? Well, this pattern is still found in the story of Jesus’s baptism. Consider:

CHAOS — The world finds itself in chaos.
WATER — Jesus comes down to the Jordan River to be baptized.
SPIRIT OVER WATER — The ruach hovers over the water (and Jesus, who is in it); the “hovering” has not been seen since the story of Creation. Could the author be insinuating that we have a “new creation” on our hands?
GOD’S SPOKEN WORD — God speaks from heaven…
ORDER IS EXPECTATION — …and Jesus will now spend the rest of his ministry partnering with God to bring order to chaos.
TESTING/TEMPTATION >> TRAGEDY — But this partnership needs to be tested…

But now, the testing will — for the first time in human history — end with a victorious triumph over chaos. And in this story of Jesus’s testing, we are given a blueprint or a formula (if you will — I write this very tongue-in-cheek) for success. How does Jesus model for us what it looks like to bring order to chaos?

This time, when man is tested, He will respond: “It is written…”

Jesus has the Text in Him. Jesus is prepared and ready. Jesus knows the path.

But just like we looked at with the Essenes, it’s not enough simply to know the path. A man must walk it. He must trust the story of God. He must be willing not only to get the Text in himself, but he must also trust that Text. So, first I ask you: What would have happened if Jesus didn’t have the Text in him? And I know that many Christians would say that the Spirit would provide the answer, but that’s not what Jesus modeled! The Spirit wasn’t what provided the answer; in fact, the Spirit is the one who drove Him into the desert to be tested in the first place.

So what would happen to you if the Spirit drove you into the desert this week to be tested? Would you have the Text in you? Would you be ready? Jesus was.

But it’s not enough only to know the Text. You also have to trust it. Satan knew the Text, as well; he quotes it during the second test. (Did you know that he misquotes the Text? How would we know that if we don’t have the Text in us?) So, simply knowing the Text isn’t enough. You also have to walk in it. It’s not enough for Jesus to know that “Man does not live by bread alone…” He actually needs to wait upon every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.

To know the path.
To walk the path.
To bring order to chaos.
To be a part of the new creation.

JOEL: the Locust Plague

The final voice from what I am calling the Babylonian Period is the voice of Joel. For me, the prophet Joel has always been the quintessential prophet who shows very clearly and concisely how a prophet often functions. Joel’s prophecy is short, but very poignant, and it is easy to see the components at work in the writings of Joel. I thought I would use this as an opportunity to walk through those parts. (NOTE: Please do use this as a formula or a comprehensive template for any and every prophet. I simply like to bring a sense of working familiarity to this portion of the Text that so many people feel like they don’t understand.)

THE IMAGE: Joel starts right off the bat by introducing us to the image that will serve as the plot for his prophecy. As we’ve pointed out time and time again, many of these prophetic voices will have a picture or an image that they like to use to communicate their message. Joel introduces us to the plot of God’s people by using the metaphor of a locust plague. In their day, locusts could migrate in these incredibly destructive waves that would blow in with the changes of the seasons. Unfortunately, these massive migrations of locusts have the potential of blowing through prior to the land’s harvest. If this took place, these armies of locusts could leave your entire nation barren and picked clean, destroying the produce of the land for that year’s harvest. Joel uses this image of destruction (maybe a literal image from current events — there’s no way to know for sure) to talk about what the Babylonians have done to the land of Israel.

Hear this, you elders;
    listen, all who live in the land.
Has anything like this ever happened in your days
    or in the days of your ancestors?
Tell it to your children,
    and let your children tell it to their children,
    and their children to the next generation.
What the locust swarm has left
    the great locusts have eaten;
what the great locusts have left
    the young locusts have eaten;
what the young locusts have left
    other locusts have eaten.

THE INVITATION TO REPENT: After setting the stage and introducing the plot of Judah's demise, Joel then invites the people to respond with an appropriate amount of introspection and repentance. Pretty straightforward, not a whole lot to add.

Put on sackcloth, you priests, and mourn;
    wail, you who minister before the altar.
Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
    you who minister before my God;
for the grain offerings and drink offerings
    are withheld from the house of your God.
Declare a holy fast;
    call a sacred assembly.
Summon the elders
    and all who live in the land
to the house of the Lord your God,
    and cry out to the Lord.

A METAPHOR CONTINUED: Whether the return to the metaphor is simply a literary tool of poetry or whether the author is trying to imply that the people are not as responsive as he thinks they should be, Joel returns to the image of the locust plague to continue to make his point about God’s discipline among His people. Only this time, it’s becoming a little fuzzy — are we talking about armies of locusts or Babylonian armies?

At the sight of them, nations are in anguish;
    every face turns pale.
They charge like warriors;
    they scale walls like soldiers.
They all march in line,
    not swerving from their course.
They do not jostle each other;
    each marches straight ahead.
They plunge through defenses
    without breaking ranks.
They rush upon the city;
    they run along the wall.
They climb into the houses;
    like thieves they enter through the windows.

Before them the earth shakes,
    the heavens tremble,
the sun and moon are darkened,
    and the stars no longer shine.
The Lord thunders
    at the head of his army;
his forces are beyond number,
    and mighty is the army that obeys his command.
The day of the Lord is great;
    it is dreadful.
    Who can endure it?

THE PLEA: Again, the prophet pleads with the people to take what they can from this horrible situation. If they would consider their ways and consider their past actions, what would they find? If they would humble themselves, would it change their perspective?

“Even now,” declares the Lord,
    “return to me with all your heart,
    with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
 
Rend your heart
    and not your garments.
Return to the Lord your God,
    for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
    and he relents from sending calamity.
Who knows? He may turn and relent
    and leave behind a blessing—
grain offerings and drink offerings
    for the Lord your God.

THE HOPE: The situation with God’s people is bad — horrible — but it is far from hopeless. God has not left their side and is not planning on deserting them in their future. In fact, God is at work in the midst of this locust plague. There’s something redemptive to be found in the destruction that the Babylonians have left behind. Joel insists on this throughout the rest of the book.

“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—
    the great locust and the young locust,
    the other locusts and the locust swarm—
my great army that I sent among you.
You will have plenty to eat, until you are full,
    and you will praise the name of the Lord your God,
    who has worked wonders for you;
never again will my people be shamed.
Then you will know that I am in Israel,
    that I am the Lord your God,
    and that there is no other;
never again will my people be shamed. 

“And afterward,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your old men will dream dreams,
    your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days.”

This is how the message of the prophet generally functions. The problem and the plea to repent all couched in a metaphor to powerfully and poetically communicate the plot of God’s people. The crescendo into a glorious future if they will weather the storm of God’s discipline well. If they will walk forward humbly and overcome, resisting the urge to give up, on the other side they will find the LORD’s redemptive plan still at work among them and in the world.

The prophecy of Joel is bookended with the symbol of new wine. At the beginning of the work, Joel speaks of a people who were about to enjoy the fresh taste of new wine, only to have it snatched from their lips at the last moment. The prophecy will end with the vision of new wine dripping from the mountains and a river flowing from the temple and watering even the desert acacias. And we find ourselves confronted yet again with images that began our journey out of Egypt so long ago.

And that is what the woes of the prophets and the discipline of God are asking us.


Will we remember?

Standing Stones

Before we leave Deuteronomy, we want to make sure that we don’t skim over this idea of remembering where we come from.  This is an important concept.  There’s an image that God employs — a tactile practice — that helps us remember our stories.

They are called standing stones.

The stones you see above are found at Tel Gezer in southern Israel.  The concept behind a standing stone is that you erect a monument where a big event happened.

An event you will need to remember.

One of those Red Sea moments.

The idea of a standing stone is that the stone itself demands a witness.  It is different than a ‘stele,’ which will actually have writing on it, describing the event in detail.  A standing stone is simply an out-of-place installment and causes the youth or the foreigner to say, “What is that?  What happened here?”  You are then forced to stop and tell the story.  Not only does this cause you to remember the story of God in your life, but it also forces you to share that story, spreading it to the next generation.

Because it’s important to pass the stories of God onto our children.  The book of Judges will make this stunning statement over and over again: “They did not remember the LORD their God and what He did for them…”

Because we have to tell our kids about what God has done.  Do you?  Did your parents?  Could you tell the stories of your family, about how God showed up for your grandfather?

This idea comes up again and again in the Scriptures.  Remember Jacob?  When he had that amazing dream from God, he took the stone he was sleeping on and stood it up, anointing it with oil.  A standing stone.  Then later, in Genesis 35, Jacob takes his whole family to Bethel, where the story took place.  Why?  To tell them the story.  When the Israelites cross the Jordan, what do they do?  They take rocks and pile them up to remember the story.

It’s important to remember where we come from.  It’s just as important to pass where we’ve come from on to our children — or they’ll probably go back.

What standing stones do you have in your life?

On my desk sits a collection of rocks that I’ve brought back from Israel.  Each one reminds me of a different story I brought back from my time in the Middle East.  There’s a piece of rope that I brought back from Hadijah’s house; she was a Muslim woman who gave everything she had in her cupboard to show me hospitality.  I have a dirty old sprinkler head on my shelf that reminds me of the day that I decided to give up on the American dream and follow God’s dream for humanity instead.  And a belt that I stole from my football uniform in high school, marking the decision I made to pursue the call of God into the ministry.

As my children grow older, they will hear these stories of mine.

Because I need to remember where I’ve come from.

Because my children need to know where I’ve been.

Because we need to know and remember what God has done.

These stones continually call us to trust the story.

Remember Where You Came From

After the wandering in the desert, the Israelites stand at the threshold to the land that was promised them and a future of unseen possibilities.  Yet, before they get to walk into their tomorrow, God desires for them to remember their yesterday.

Enter the book of Deuteronomy.  The call of Deuteronomy is to remember where you’ve come from.  Just look at all the calls to remember in this one book:

“… do not forget the things your eyes have seen … teach them to your children … Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God …” (4:9–10)
“Be careful not to forget the covenant …” (4:23)
“… be careful that you do not forget the LORD …” (4:31; 6:12; 8:11)
“Remember that you were slaves in Egypt …” (5:15; 16:12; 24:18; 24:22)
“Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness …” (8:2)
“But remember the LORD your God … if you ever forget the LORD your God …” (8:18–19)
“Remember this and never forget …” (9:7)
“Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God.” (11:2)
“… so that all the days of your life you may remember the time of your departure from Egypt.” (16:3)
“Remember what the LORD your God did …” (24:9)
“Remember what the Amalekites did to you … do not forget!” (25:17–19)
“Remember the days of old; consider generations long past. Ask your father and he will tell, your elders and they will explain to you …”  (32:7)

That’s 25 references, in case you were keeping track.

It’s important to remember.

But it’s also interesting to note WHAT the Israelites are being called to remember.  So many times, these calls to remember are connected to the alien, the orphan, and the widow.  God keeps telling the Israelites to remember their story.

Because they were foreigners once.
And orphans.
And widows.

They are to remember their own stories and become people who see the oppressed.  Because God saw them when they were oppressed.  And God heard their cry.

They are being invited to remember, so that they will hear the cries of others.  And it’s not too long before this becomes an endless cycle of “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” syndrome.  Do I remember my story and therefore take care of the alien, orphan, and widow?  Or do I take care of the alien, orphan, and widow and it reminds me of my story?

YES.

And in case you were wondering, here’s the list of references to the alien, orphan, and widow:

1:16
5:14
10:18
10:19
14:21
14:29
16:11
16:14
23:7
24:14
24:17
24:19
24:20
24:21
26:11
26:12
26:13
27:19
31:12

This is important.

Because when you forget your story, you begin to feel entitled.  When you forget your humble beginnings, you begin to be proud.  When you forget your Egypts, you begin to be self-righteous.

And so God tells us to remember where we’ve come from — because it keeps us humble.

And God tells us to take care of the oppressed — because it helps us to remember.

And remembering is a big part of trusting the story.

MAIM CHAIM: Living Water

Two more pictures form the desert and we’ll move on.


This picture shows a location in the Negev called En Gedi. Today, En Gedi is a nature reserve and a fascinating place in the desert.  When I visited En Gedi for the first time in 2008, our teacher led us in from the back of the park so we didn’t know where we were. I am not kidding when I say that you couldn’t tell you were approaching water until you were practically right on top of it.

The whole scene was fascinating.  One minute, we were walking in a desert almost identical to the picture in our last post, and the next minute we were staring at a waterfall.  To say that such a location is refreshing in the desert would be an understatement.  On that point, the picture almost writes this blog post itself.

This kind of water is called maim chaim in the Hebrew.  Maim chaim is “living water.”  Living water comes from God — either from rain or a spring. For living water to be “living,” it cannot be moved by human hands.  You cannot get living water from a cistern or a bucket.  En Gedi is a great example of living water.  Again, we were invited to understand that our call is to be “living water” for people in their deserts and to reflect on those people who have been En Gedi in our lives.



This second picture shows a wadi flood.  Wadis are deep canyons cut into the desert terrain; again, the picture in the last post also shows a wadi.  I was shocked to learn that the number one cause of death in the desert is flood.  During the rainy season, rain will fall in a distant region. The rain comes in such quantity and the ground is so dry that the water rushes to the lowest point.  These wadis flood at an incredible rate; I was told that if I was in a wadi and heard the sound of a train, I had about 90 seconds to get out of the wadi.

Besides being incredibly destructive, these wadi floods leave behind many biblical images. Look at this passage from Psalm 69:

But I pray to you, Lord,
    in the time of your favor;
in your great love, O God,
    answer me with your sure salvation.
Rescue me from the mire,
    do not let me sink;
deliver me from those who hate me,
    from the deep waters.
Do not let the floodwaters engulf me
    or the depths swallow me up
    or the pit close its mouth over me.

The floods leave behind puddles of mud (or “mire”) that is so sticky that a person or animal can be trapped without any place to go.  In some cases, this mire can be trickier than quicksand.

Jesus used this wadi flood imagery, as well.  He mentioned that anyone who listened to His teaching was like a man who built his house on the rock, but the fool who didn’t was like one who built his house on the sand.  I have been told by people in construction that sand is a great building material.  It is flexible, it packs solid.  So was Jesus wrong?

The people of the desert would understand that the “sand” is found in the bottom of the wadi; nobody builds their house in the bottom of the wadi.  But the man who listens to Jesus is like a man who builds his house on the rock (or the “cliff face”), out of the path of floods.

Needless to say, the desert is full of images that help us grow into the people and partners God is looking to use in His great Kingdom Project.

Trees of the Desert: AR'AR & TAMARISK

We have two more trees of the desert to talk about.  Let's look at the Jeremiah passage we mentioned in the last post that referenced the acacia tree.

This is what the Lord says:

“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
    who draws strength from mere flesh
    and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
    they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
    in a salt land where no one lives.

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
    whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
    that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
    its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
    and never fails to bear fruit.”

Jeremiah 17:5–8

The second part of that passage again mentions the acacia that we talked about in the last post.  You may notice how similar that image in verse 7 and 8 is to the first Psalm.  But the previous paragraph describes a new tree.

AR'AR
The tree mentioned in verse 5 and 6 is the ar'ar.  It is a stunning picture if you ever run into such a tree.  The tree is this lush and beautiful green bush that has huge, plump fruit on it.  The large green fruit is about the size of a grapefruit and looks like it will be full of sweet things.  And yet, when you take the fruit and break it open, it is completely empty — full of air.  The bedouins of the area claim that the “juice” excreted by the broken fruit is poisonous.

It is a striking image of the desert.  The man who trusts in flesh looks incredibly lush and fertile on the outside — but is full of death and emptiness on the inside.  And deserts have a way of bringing that out of a man.

There is a final tree that shows up in the desert.  It is an image that moves me to this day.

TAMARISK
The tamarisk tree is tall and beautiful.  Like the acacia, the tamarisk is a larger tree, but unlike the former, it does not grow on its own in the desert.  This desert tree requires some minor cultivation in order to survive.  The leaves of the tree absorb what little moisture is in the area and then give off the faintest glimmer of humidity in its shade.  The shade of a tamarisk tree is often 10–15 degrees cooler than the shade of other trees.

But this cultivated tree takes three generations to grow to its full size.  So it stands to reason that a person never plants a tamarisk tree for himself; he will never reap its benefits. A man plants a tamarisk tree for his grandchildren.

In the twenty-first chapter of Genesis, we read the following words:

After the treaty had been made at Beersheba, Abimelek and Phicol the commander of his forces returned to the land of the Philistines. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Eternal God. And Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines for a long time.

That story always brings tears to my eyes.  After making a treaty with the Philistines, Abraham goes and plants a tamarisk tree.

It is a statement of faith; Abraham is trusting the story.

He's not planting the tamarisk for himself.  He is planting it for his grandchildren.  He is believing God's promise and staking a claim.


The rabbis ask a question: How many tamarisk trees did you plant today?

How many things did you do today that were for your grandchildren?  These are things that aren't for yourself — things that have eternal ripples. 

This idea pervades much of rabbinic teaching.  Another statement that is often made is that when people obey the mitzvoth (the commands), they are planting the seeds that will become the very trees of the restored Eden.

Your call is bigger than you.  The things you do today have the opportunity to ring throughout the generations.  The choices you make matter.  The story you choose to trust will affect those who stand on your shoulders.  Even in your deserts, you are planting seeds with your life.

How many tamarisk trees did you plant today?

Trees of the Desert: ACACIA

There is another tree in the desert I would like to introduce to you.

ACACIA
This tree is called the acacia.  It is probably the most recognizable and most commonly thought of tree in the desert.  You find different relatives of the acacia tree all around the deserts of the world.  The acacia that's found in Israel has some interesting characteristics.

For starters, the acacia is known for being incredibly resourceful.  The bedouins (people native to the Palestinian desert) claim that you can use the tree for everything from sustenance to fuel and even healing agents.  This tree is incredibly useful.  It's also significantly bigger and casts a much larger shade area.  The tree will often lie dormant for years until the rains come and the area around it is flooded.  At that point, after lying dormant for years, the tree will spring to life and bear its fruit, the buds looking like little white flowers.

One of the biblical references to this tree is found in Psalm 1 and again in Jeremiah 17.  Let's look at Psalm 1 for this post and we'll look at Jeremiah 17 in the next one.

Blessed is the one
    who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
    or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
    whatever they do prospers.

Now, first of all, let's look at what makes a person like this tree.  They meditate on the law of the LORD.  The word for meditate in the Psalm is the word hagah.  Let me show you another place where hagah is used:

          “As a lion growls,
               a great lion over its prey—
           and though a whole band of shepherds
               is called together against it,
           it is not frightened by their shouts
               or disturbed by their clamor…”   Isaiah 31:4

The Hebrew word for “growls” (bolded above) is hagah.  It is a case of onomatopoeia — where the word sounds like the very thing it describes.  You say the word hagah with a fierce tone and a little roll of the ‘g’ sound.  It should sound like the deep, murmuring growl of a lion, hunched over its prey, proclaiming to the world around it that it means business.

Believe it or not, the word for meditate is also hagah.  Contrary to the popular idea that we should pull up a chair to the corner of the porch (with a good cup of coffee, maybe) and silently contemplate the scripture, this Psalm speaks of one who devours the Text with a fierce, hungry appetite.  (My goal is certainly not to downplay the importance of the other forms of meditation; these are good and beneficial as well.)

If we devour the Text, we become like an acacia in the desert.

But do you catch the image?  The Psalm said that the man who intensely devours the Text is like an acacia that bears its fruit in season.  But the acacia only comes to life once every decade or so.  You see, our discipline of becoming people of the Text is not a quick-fix formula.  It is a deeply rooted passion that pulls us through our deserts.  We hagah and hagah and hagah and one day — when the season is right and when the rains finally come — we bear our fruit.

And we are incredibly useful when we bear our fruit.   And we provide great shade.  But if you were to have looked at that tree two years ago, it looked as dead as could be.  So we had to stay true to our calling.  We couldn't walk with the wicked or stand with the sinners or sit with the mockers.  We had to hagah on God's voice (that is, God's word) and keep on walking.

These are the lessons of the desert.  One foot in front of the other, trusting the story, following the voice of the shepherd.  Just enough.  Patience.  Persistence. 

One foot in front of the other. Through our deserts.

Trees of the Desert: ROTEM

**  The next few posts about "Desert Trees" has been highly shaped by the work of Nogah Hareuveni, one of the world's premier experts in biblical botany. I have used his work to help identify which trees in the Text are which; I experienced the desert lessons from my time in the desert with Ray VanderLaan.

Of the images that came out of the desert, my personal favorite was learning about the trees.

Now, I don't want to mislead you.  That comment was not designed to say that there were lots of trees in the desert; there are very few.  I didn't see groves of trees as I wandered around in the blistering heat — which is actually why the image of trees was so powerful.  I want to tell you about four trees in the desert.

ROTEM
The first “tree” comes in the form of a bush.  This tree, called rotem in the Hebrew, is also referred to as a broomtree.  It comes up in the Scriptures a number of times.  Hagar sets Ishmael under a rotem.  Elijah lies under a rotem and wants to die.  The broomtree is the desert's image of “shade.”  Prior to my time in the desert, I never noticed the passages of Scripture that mentioned shade; the picture just didn't jump out at me.  Now that I have spent time in the desert, I seem to notice any mention of shade in the Text.  The Bible is a book written to desert people — people who don't live in a land of shade.  When you live in desert, shade is an unbelievable relief and refuge from the heat of the day.

God is often referred to as our shade in the Text.  Psalm 121 says that the LORD is the shade at our right hand.  Isaiah 25 speaks of God like this:

Lord, you are my God;
    I will exalt you and praise your name,
for in perfect faithfulness
    you have done wonderful things,
    things planned long ago.
You have made the city a heap of rubble,
    the fortified town a ruin,
the foreigners’ stronghold a city no more;
    it will never be rebuilt.
Therefore strong peoples will honor you;
    cities of ruthless nations will revere you.
You have been a refuge for the poor,
    a refuge for the needy in their distress,
a shelter from the storm
    and a shade from the heat.
For the breath of the ruthless
    is like a storm driving against a wall
and like the heat of the desert.

 God is our rotem.  But what strikes you about the broomtree is its size.  It is not a large tree.  It is the size of a typical sagebrush, which teaches us an important lesson.  It is the lesson of just enough.  This is the rule of the desert.  God doesn't simply want to pour abundance into your life.  There are times and seasons where He may choose to do that, but the desert teaches us how to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.  It teaches us how to be content with just enough.  The rotem is not designed to be a massive shelter for total recuperation; the rotem is just enough shade to get us to the next stop along our journey.

This is who God shows Himself to be in our lives.

This is what God gives.

Just enough.

But the lesson doesn't end there.  We are also called to be rotem for others.

Isaiah speaks later about the time when Messiah would come.  He will say the following in chapter 32:

See, a king will reign in righteousness
    and rulers will rule with justice.
Each one will be like a shelter from the wind
    and a refuge from the storm,
like streams of water in the desert
    and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.

The “king” who reigns in righteousness would be Messiah, but the rulers are plural.  Who are the rulers?  The rulers would be us.  There will be a King who will reign in righteousness and there will be rulers who rule with justice.  And each one of those rulers will be shelter, refuge, water — and shade.

Your calling is to be shade for others in their desert.

Now you don't have to be the answer to all their questions or perform miracles.  You aren't called to be a gigantic oak tree.  You are called to be shade.

Just enough.

We can all do that.  We can all be people who provide the refreshing relief for others on their journey — who allow them to make it to the next step.  We can be rotem.  So go and find people in their desert.  Go and provide some shade for the exhausted and water for the thirsty.  The desert has taught us to be people who put God on display.

"As a Bride You Loved Me..."

The book of Numbers depicts the time of the Israelites in the desert.  As we've already noted, the desert period is a time that reflects the “honeymoon period” between God and His bride.  I think that image alone speaks to us about our “deserts.”

The very nature of the desert forces us to rely solely and completely on God.  There is no lying to yourself that you somehow have provided for your own needs by your own power.  There is no water, no food, no shade, no distraction.  There is no hope, except for whatever you truly believe about who God is and the story He's telling in the world.

I want to share in the next couple posts about my own time in the desert.  I got to spend about six days in the wilderness of the Negev, Zin, and Paran deserts.  The mental images that I acquired in the desert are seared (pun intended) into my memory.  The unbearable heat, the stifling air, the rugged terrain taught me more about who God is and who I am than any other exercise I have done.  It will certainly not be my goal to make light of the deserts we go through.  They are hard and brutally tough.

But I remember the day that our teacher looked at us after one week and said, “Tomorrow, we leave the desert.”

And I remember tearing up.

I didn't want to leave the desert.  I had seen God in a new way.  I had experienced His closeness.  His voice thundered in my soul with so much more intensity when I sat in my uncomfortable uneasiness.  I felt as if I was sitting in His lap and now I was being asked to get up because it was time to go.  And I think in that moment I got a taste of what God experiences in the desert with us.

In the prophet Jeremiah, God had said:

“I remember the devotion of your youth,
    how as a bride you loved me
and followed me through the wilderness,
    through a land not sown.”

In that week I learned that I would rather weep and struggle in the lap of my God than I would walk triumphantly without Him.  I would rather stumble in confusion and be embraced by the groom than I would walk with confidence in a land He had not given me.

And I can imagine that God probably likes that about deserts.

Of course, God has not created us for deserts.

And He has not called us to sit in His lap forever.

God is putting the world back together and when He finds partners, He often shapes them in the desert.  But the reason He's shaping our lives is so that we can go “bless all nations.”  The reason He's teaching us to be fed by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God is because we'll need to be able to trust in His shalom as we walk into a world of chaos.

The desert is never the destination.  But it sure shapes us for the mission.

And before we move on to the plot of the story, we may want to consider the lessons that are taught in the desert.  Before we march around Jericho, we may need some time in the sun, plodding on in thirst.  Before we acquire houses we did not build and vineyards we did not plant, we may need to be taught where every good gift comes from.

And so, before the promised land, I invite you to follow me out to the desert…