Category: Where Travel Meets God

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Walking in Uprightness

Read: Proverbs 11:1–6

Imagine you are traveling across the country on a train. The train sways while the rumble of wheels along the track fills your ears. After the train attendant checks your ticket, you head to the observation car. While you walk, you check your balance, hands reaching for seat backs and handrails. You step one foot in front of the other, weighing each step in your mind, eyeing potential risks. Your caution pays off! You did not fall down or onto anyone else, and you reach a swivel seat and fall into its comfort to enjoy the scenery.

To walk in uprightness with God is an everyday choice in a world where the train sways beneath our feet. When stepping forward on God’s path, we choose how we act, with honesty or dishonesty, with pride or humility, with integrity or duplicity, with righteousness or unrighteousness—and each choice has a consequence.

When pairing the first attribute in these pairs with trust in God (Proverbs 3:5-6), we find it possible to step forward in faith; this combination fortifies our decisions to live like Christ. God uses honesty, for example, to build trust between people (Genesis 30:33) and humility to form community (Philippians 2:3–4). As well, he establishes a plan for us when we act in integrity (1 Kings 9:4–5) and produces strength in suffering when we act in righteousness (Job 17:9).

Best of all, walking in honesty, humility, integrity, and righteousness puts us in God’s favor. No, he does not stop the sway of the train, but he does reward us in many ways for our obedience. By trusting in him and aligning our steps with his way, we walk the path toward eternal life—and, in the meantime, we can fall into the comfort of God’s arms when the sway of the train threatens to knock us down.

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Happy and Full of the Holy Spirit

Cat sitting on a chair tucked under a table at a restaurant
Exterior of a restaurant with white-cloth-covered table and white metal chairs with aqua seats. Pink Bougainvillea climbs the wall.
Read: 3 John

Imagine you’re in Athens. You glance at the menu displayed outside the restaurant, and the host swoops in, gesturing toward tables waiting for occupants. The bond between you and the host has been set with the words “Please sit! We have Greek salad and souvlaki!”

Drawn in, you sit and a liter of water appears. The server asks what you like and recommends options. You order the souvlaki, a Greek specialty.

For dessert, the server recommends bougatsa, puff pastry baked with custard. Your stomach says it’s full, but when the server suggests sharing a piece with your dining partner, you order it because you will not have to eat it alone.

You enter the restaurant feeling welcome and leave feeling happy and full.

John, too, ensured that his followers entered the mission field feeling welcome and stayed in it feeling happy and full. In the case of 3 John, he forged a bond in Jesus Christ with his beloved friend Gaius by offering encouragement, advice, and warnings, all of which pointed to the gospel.

First, John offered encouragements that popped with exclamation points (vv. 3–4). He built up Gaisus’s self-esteem and stirred in him the desire to continue his gospel work of leading a team of traveling missionaries.

Second, John gave Gaius water for his spirit in the form of praise (vv. 5–7). Before offering his advice in verses 6 and 8, John mentions Gaius’s faithfulness to and love for his missionaries, building Gaius’s confidence in his mission.

Third, John warned Gaius of the opposition that sought to stop the spread of the gospel (vv. 9–10). He reassured Gaius of the importance of his mission with the promise of an ally.

Can you see why Gaius continued his work as a leader to missionaries? He stayed the course because John assured him his efforts were good, right, and viable.

In fact, John provided the example for Gaius to follow as a leader. John forged a bond in Jesus Christ to welcome a fellow believer into relationship and ensure he continued his gospel mission happy and full of the Holy Spirit.

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Remembering God’s Faithfulness

Landscape view of distant mountains with a foreground of trees framing the mountain 
Hebrews 10:23 (ESV)—Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

I struggled with the Lookout Trail near Asheville. The stairs with 12-inch rises tested my muscular endurance, and the 623-feet elevation change in 1.4 miles strained the capacity of my lungs.

Still, I climbed upward and stopped, more than once, to catch my breath. All the while, my mind conjured the question, was the view at the top worth the struggle of climbing a mountain?

If I asked this question to the writer of Hebrews, the answer is yes, the struggle is absolutely worth it. The Christians in Hebrews wanted to cling to their old sacrificial system, which required repeat sacrifices, but they did not need to. Instead, to let go, they needed to remember the times their faith yielded joyfulness and compassion in the face of reproach.

In other words, our perseverance comes from remembering God’s faithfulness during our struggles. The memories color our future with strongly rooted trunks to help us ascend the path, and each step leads us closer to the panoramic view of “a better possession and an abiding one” (Hebrews 10:34).

With this reward and these memories in mind, we can walk with confidence along the difficult path because we know he’ll be faithful until the end.

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Delighting in Wondrous Things

A white-washed church with a blue top 
Psalm 119:18 (ESV)—Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.

A paved path of cobblestones and marble winds through the white-washed buildings in Fira. The Aegean blue rooftops and yellow and red bougainvillea add pops of color to the white landscape. Shop owners greet passersby while setting up displays of scarves, clothing, and jewelry, and restaurant managers beckon the tourists to eat at their establishments. The photo-perfect Greek experience spills before the tourist’s eyes while they wander the town and gaze toward Oia in the distance.

This characteristic picture of Greece, all white-washed buildings and blue rooftops, is pretty but inadequate to represent the whole country. There is more than picturesque Santorini when we open our travel schedule to the whole country: olive groves in the countryside, the colorful medieval village of Nafplio, rock formations topped with monasteries in Meteora, not to mention Athens.

As in travel, opening our eyes to the “wondrous things” helps us discover an all-powerful God who wants his servants to find delight in obeying his Word. The psalmist in Psalm 119 expressed desire to keep God’s word and counted himself as insufficient to see the wondrous things in God’s law without God’s guidance.

Like the psalmist, we are inadequate to understand God’s statutes without his sufficiency. God teaches us Truth to ingrain in us a longing to obey his perfect Word. In this, our obedient relationship, God reveals the wondrous things of his law—a generous Father who wants us to see his sufficiency.

Without God, the wondrous things of his law remain hidden. To see these Truths and delight in his law, we can admit our inadequacy to God and then commit to studying his Word. Our study may include praying for understanding before and after we read his words, studying the context of scripture, and reading commentaries to clarify his messages. This deeper learning strengthens our relationship with God, who shows goodness to his obedient servants.

A cafe in Nafplio with a pink exterior and bougainvillea hanging against the wall
Nafplio
A cityscape of Athens from on top of a hill, looking out to sea
Athens
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Adventuring Solo

A pair of cats resting under a bougainvillea bush.
Luke 5:16 (ESV)—But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.

“I’m going on a solo adventure,” I announced to my husband in our hotel room on Santorini. Not a full one-person vacation but a stretch of time alone in Megalochori before we attended a wedding—where there were people and my anxiety wanted to make an appearance.

With a goodbye kiss to my husband, I strapped my camera around my neck and invited the Holy Spirit into my walk. God met my need for peace and calm with the quiet morning hour. I passed tavernas not yet open for the day, saying hello to the Greek matriarch sitting in a chair outside a restaurant. I explored the nooks and crannies of white-washed homes and businesses, beckoning Santorini’s cat population to pose for photos.

Retreats like this in our day-to-day provide rest to our spirits. Jesus, too, restored his spirit through quiet time with God. He retreated from the hustle and bustle of the crowds who expected healing. Without such rest, the human side of him would have experienced exhaustion, mentally, physically, spiritually, and/or emotionally.

Like Jesus, we can better be present for others when we’re present for ourselves. Caring for ourselves honors God because he created us with a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). He made us to steward his creation, not to fall over from fatigue—the fall did that.

Our lives are busy, true. Things to do, people to see. Yet to carve out a time to walk and pray during a quiet time of day, meditate on a section of the Bible, write a list of things we’re thankful for, or do another practice can provide us the rest we need to serve others better in Christ’s name.

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Seeking the Fruit on the Branches

Grove of orange trees with fruit on the ground and among the branches 
Psalm 119:17 (ESV)—Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word.

The oranges on the ground beneath the trees in the National Garden beckoned my stomach to growl. Saliva filled my mouth, an image of that morning’s orange pie stamping itself on my brain. I wondered out loud to my husband, “Do you think it’s okay to pick it up and eat it, or will I get in trouble?”

Why did I wonder this? Because we were strolling next to the Greek Parliament building and my mind conjured the fruit police swooping in. And, quite honestly, I thought it a waste to let the fruit sit on the ground and rot. Why let the ants devour it when the sweet citrus could fill my belly instead?

My stomach had the wrong idea, though. Why was I seeking the fruit on the ground when the tree still nourished the fruit hanging from the branches? The spiritual answer to this question comes from Psalm 119.

In this praise-filled poem, the anonymous writer extolled the transformative power of obeying God’s decrees when, post-exile, many of the people of Israel still sought the fruit on the ground (idols, for one) rather than the fruit in the tree (God’s promise of redemption and restoration).

Like the poet, we share a relationship with the Lord and become beneficiaries of his promises by putting his principles into practice. Our inheritance includes the benefit of his wisdom, which helps us understand why we’re obeying him.

Truly, seeking the fruit hanging from the branches fills us with the confidence to obey our kind, generous, and merciful God. Seeking him is as simple as turning to the Bible for guidance, asking the advice of a trusted fellow Christian, or praying—because God is waiting for us to open the page, ask the question, or make the request so he can answer.

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Crying Out to God

A dilapitated door with a hole in the middle that shows a dilapidated building 
Psalm 31:21-23 (ESV)—Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was in a besieged city. I had said in my alarm, “I am cut off from your sight.” But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to you for help.

Her distress tolled like a battle cry in the airplane cabin. A few hours into a ten-hour flight from Chicago to Athens, the toddler sitting behind me bolted from her seat into the aisle, screaming, “I don’t want to go to bed; I want to walk around!” Though her parents sat her back down and tried to console her, she resisted bedtime with resounding cries and rambunctious seat kicks.

And she’s not alone in her feelings. In Psalm 31, David remembered feeling abandoned while in a “besieged city” and recounted his initial response: “I am cut off from your sight.” His fear assailed him like the despair a child felt when not sleeping in her own bedroom.

Thankfully, hopelessness and alarm do not have to rule over us. An honest, open relationship with God places us in the protection of his grace and mercy. We can pray to him and know he’ll hear and respond.

Because of this knowledge, we do not have to hunker down in fear of the besiege happening around us. Our alarm is not a signal to dive for cover; it is a sign to call out to God. Our prayer can be “I want to walk with you” rather than “I am cut off from your sight.”

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Laughing in the Rain

1 Peter 1:20–21 (ESV)—[Christ] was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

I can personally attest, Athenian sidewalks enjoy tripping tourists. Marble pedestrian concourses laugh as sandal-wearing tourists pitch forward. Tile sidewalks buckle for the thrill of watching visitors stub their toes. Even better, cobbled walkways dole out laughter:

The rain began while my husband and I left the jazz club to search for gelato. We stepped with care, reaching the slightest decline in elevation. My husband slipped, arms flailing, but stayed upright. I laughed, of course, and slowed my pace…only to lose my foothold and land on my butt.

Like the sidewalks of Athens, God’s path includes trials that pitch us into harmful circumstances or cause us a world of pain. Peter’s message to “elect” followers of Jesus told much the same story, with an added bonus: faith has an inexplicable power to produce laughter in the rain.

Such a foothold of faith induces rejoicing that aids us in harmful circumstances. This allows God’s abundant peace and grace to flow through us, and through these he supports us.

Indeed, our faith in him allows us to stand even when we fall on our butts. In fact, when butts hit the ground, our response of laughing in the rain cements our faith and strengthens our hope in the living God.

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Aligning Our Expectations

In the foreground old wooden boat in on top a white-washed building. In the background, white-washed building stretching to the edge of a cliff, the town of Oia on the island of Santorini, Greece. 
Romans 8:18 (ESV)—For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

When telling family and friends of my trip to Greece, I heard widespread appeal for travel companions: “Can I be your assistant?” “Do you need a bodyguard?” and “Can I travel along in your carry on?”

These responses made me wonder, what draws people to this place? Is it the travel magazines showing white-washed buildings perched on cliffs or the travel films boasting of ancient ruins? Does the Mediterranean diet attract the droves of tourists?

I think, yes, these do play a role. Yet I also see their part in building expectations, enticing us with a taste of what’s possible . . . a possibility that may let us down (say, when we realize the metro doesn’t run super early in the morning and we need another mode of transportation to the airport).

However, not all expectations disappoint, according to the Apostle Paul. He preached to the Romans of the expectation of meeting Christ in his Kingdom one day. When he noted God’s promise to free creation from the bondage of sin as a reward for their faith, he encouraged expectations aligned with God’s plan.

As such, Paul’s message suggests expectations play a role in our life. Our earthly expectations pull us back from seeking God’s promises, whereas our heavenly expectations draw us closer to aligning our plan with God’s.

Though we may suffer today, the future holds hope, a hope that seeks God’s inheritance rather than despair, a hope that seeks God’s guidance rather than stagnation. With the knowledge of God’s promise of a future free of sin, we can align our expectations with his plan. Drawing on hope puts our hardships into the perspective of Apostle Paul’s: “The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:19, ESV).

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Committing All to God

Roseate spoonbill flying above a marsh. The photo is blurry.
Proverbs 16:9 (ESV)—The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.

Standing on top of an observation deck overlooking the wetlands on Fort George Island, I spied a roseate spoonbill. My second sighting ever of this beautiful bird. Though my feathered friend sat far away, I lifted my camera, zoomed in, focused manually, and snapped away happily.

Then the spoonbill took flight.

In haste, I zipped the camera in its direction and snapped with haphazard grace, not changing a single setting to meet the demands of the photo. My hands snapped into motion before my mind did.

Later, while examining the photo, I zoomed in on the spoonbill. Nothing but a blur—distinctly a flying bird, but with a lack of detail that I could’ve captured if I’d slowed down and changed a few camera settings.

The same is true for the plans of man. We plan to our heart’s content and snap into action to satisfy our desires, and we later realize our settings were not set to God’s. The details are a blur that could’ve been avoided if we’d obeyed.

Fortunately, God cares about our heart’s desires. Proverbs 16:3 entreats us to commit all we do to the Lord. When we do this, we can trust our next steps will come into crisp, clear focus in God’s timing.

Truly, our plan begins with connecting our lens of faith to God’s camera body and continues with obeying. With God, our ideas take flight in every step from concept to final result.