Barbara: Hi, everyone. Welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox and today's guest is Lindsay marks. I met Lindsay in Germany. She's from California and she's lived five places and is now back in North Carolina, where she was before with her husband and two children. Lindsey didn't grow up, going to church.
She came home in second grade and told her parents that she wanted to learn about God. The following year, Lindsay was enrolled in a Christian school and she was baptized when she was nine years old. Her parents were baptized after that. Lindsay attended a regular high school and was still a believer, but doing more her own thing, she has been a military spouse for 17 years.
She was a kindergarten teacher and between military moves and the current pandemic, is a stay at home mom and homeschooler. Having children brought Lindsey back to a closer relationship with God. She realized that she needed God's guidance while raising kids. Lindsay has also volunteered with church organizations, such as Protestant women of the chapel, serving as vice-president, Bible study facilitator and volunteering in the childcare room.
Lindsay works to show her children what a relationship with God is about. Her dreams include making memories with family, maybe in a camper, returning to Minnesota after military retirement, and really whatever God has in store. Welcome today, Lindsay. It's so great to have you. How are things in North Carolina for you and your family since you moved back?
Lindsay: Thanks for having me Barbara, excited to be doing this with you. This has been a very challenging move for us, so it's kind of been a struggle, coming overseas in a pandemic It's just been a bit of a challenge.
And being in this space all the time with homeschooling, but I'll look back and see that this is something that God meant to happen in everyone's life for a reason. We don't see it now, but. That's how it's meant to be. Yeah.
Barbara: It's kind of related to the Bible verse that you selected. Esther chapter four, verse 14 and for people who have a paper Bible with them. Esther is in the Hebrew scripture, which we call the old Testament.
Lindsay: “perhaps this is the moment for which you have been created” and it's the second half of the verse. I've really always used this verse as a mom, because there have been a lot of times that I've struggled with kids being difficult or ornery, or just my own emotions and feelings and in God's timing, the Holy spirit comes to mind and says, perhaps this is the moment for which you have been created. Sometimes it's some of the worst moments of my life. And that gives me the perseverance that I need to keep going. And I will walk and not grow weary.
Barbara: Thank you so much for sharing that. Lindsay, how did you decide to join the pilgrimage to Israel? And what were your thoughts around the whole experience as you were anticipating it?
Lindsay: prior to being in Germany and kind of just being a stone's throw away from Israel, I really never considered going. Which to me now is shocking because it was such a life-changing trip. But I grew up with Jewish friends and some of them had actually gone to do their Jewish pilgrimage over there.
And it just felt like it wasn't a connection for me. But I got to a place in my walk with God where it was really a no brainer that the second I heard it came up, I had to jump on it. I was like, I must go there. I want to walk in the footsteps of Jesus
That's always my prayer to God that my fire will always be lit for him. And my purpose is to serve him and do what he is directing me to do. And I just felt like it was calling me to go. I had to see what the Holy land was all about and where it all began.
Barbara: you spent time preparing not only just physically for the trip, but also spiritually for this pilgrimage, what Bible studies were you engaged in before the trip? And what did you learn? And do you have a recommendation if any of our listeners are saying, I don't think I'm probably ever going to get to Israel. How can this still be relevant for someone who's not planning a trip?
Lindsay: at the time of the trip, I was co-facilitating “The Rock, the Road and the Rabbi” by Kathy Lee Gifford and Rabbi Jason Sobel. Teresa had approached me about doing that with her. I'm glad that I said yes, because it really was an amazing study.
It opened my eyes to a part of the Bible that I didn't even know before, like an onion that kept rebuilt, revealing another layer and stories that I've heard a hundred times or jumping off the page at me. When viewed through a different lens, like the Jewish lens I could see it completely differently than I had before.
I learned this in Israel and it's just a verse that I wanted to bring up. Cause I know it's a favorite of many, Psalm 46:10, “be still and know that I am God.” I was told that the original translation was, “Let go and know that I'm God,” which is to me, just amazing because that's what God wants us to do.
We want to have all this control in our lives and we really that's a farce. We don't have any control. I'd like to think so. But he's just saying, let go and let me do in your life, what I have planned for you.
Barbara: letting go of something is totally different.
Lindsay: Exactly.
Barbara: The Rock, the Road and the Rabbi study had so many amazing nuggets, even the word Bethlehem, in the Hebrew words, if I'm recalling correctly, it's house of bread.
And Jesus said, I am the bread of life. And my brain was just being blown all the time. I ended up watching the videos after the trip and it was just wonderful.
Lindsay: I highly recommend it, for anyone, whether you would be going to Israel or not. And another study that I recommend that I did previously to this trip was “Seamless” by Angie Smith. That to me is great for beginners and seasoned Christians. it's a good intro to the entire Bible in short form or it's a really great refresher for understanding that the Bible is one complete story and not an old Testament versus a new Testament. And pre-Jesus. And during Jesus's time, you know, Jesus was there from the beginning. And I think a lot of people forget that. And so seamless is fantastic. I highly recommend that,
Barbara: I took that study and the people in my study enjoyed it. I've been going to church my whole life and I still learn so many new things. And the videos are funny. She has an irreverent sense of humor, but I don't believe that that takes away from her faith or from that message at all.
Lindsay: I don't either. Another study that I enjoyed was “Finding I Am” by Lysa TerKeurst. In the videos you will see the places that are in Israel, and that was really great to learn about the different aspects of Jesus.
Barbara: Lysa was talking about how Jesus was talking with the disciples about, feed my lambs and care for my sheep. And she gave an example of they were fishermen. And they would know exactly how many fish they caught and they would have to check, Oh, this one's too small, it’s got to go back in the water, kind of tossing them over their shoulders. One, two, three, four, five, but you don't do that with the lambs. They recognize your voice and you're spending time with them that it's different when you're fishing. You do what's appropriate in your profession, but the sheep is a whole different story. And I just love that analogy that she explained.
Lindsay: I to this day have the different Bible quotes of I am right by my front door.
Barbara: all of these are listed on the podcast website as well, which is 40 minutes of faith.com.
Lindsay: these last two actually aren't studies, but we found out about Ray Vander Laan through the Kathy Lee book because she has taken a lot of pilgrimages to Israel and she has gone with him. We started watching these Ray Vanderlaan has a series called “that the world may know,” and there is so much knowledge in there that, that combined with Bible readings will really help history come to life. You can get that at study gateway.
The last one is the Bible in one year app by Nikki and Pippa Gumbel. So what the Bible in one year app does, if you stick with it daily and it gives you a daily Psalms or Proverbs verse, an old Testament and a new Testament, and it provides a meaningful commentary or all sections, sometimes we read parts of the Bible and we're like, I don't even understand what I just read.
So this is a seasoned scholar who really dove in and done a lot of the homework for us to give us meaningful, helpful commentary to guide us along the path and everything I listened to sounds very biblically based.
Barbara: Yeah. That's a fantastic list. And after all of this prep work, we got on a bunch of different planes and made our way down to Israel. And I would love to hear your memorable experiences, anything that you would like to share about how this spiritual pilgrimage impact?
Lindsay: it was so awe inspiring to be in Israel – it was like history coming to life. And when you're walking in the land where it all started, you know, it's really evident there.
So my number one experience was on the sea of Galilee. We went on a boat. they called it the Jesus boat. This is the sea of Galilee, where my Lord walked on water, and the area where he performed miracles. And it was just so moving. I remember the “I believe in God, our father, I believe in Christ the son.” I was familiar with the song before, but it led me to tears on that boat and it was just so moving. Because we were as a family of believers, we were all together on that boat professing our praise to God. And it was absolutely amazing.
I also enjoyed the Mount of beatitudes, just for the fact of knowing the sermon on the Mount and Jesus is telling us how he wants us to live. I have, another written thing that I wanted to share: “I am sitting on the Mount of beatitudes after having just gone sailing on the sea of Galilee, it was a beautiful, amazing experience. I feel Jesus in this place and it is so peaceful through the beatitudes. Jesus was telling us a better place and way to live. Which set of rules are governing my life, the world’s or God's? What are you worrying about? Let go and know that he is God. So there's that verse again.
Barbara: Say those questions again, because if anyone wants to jot them down, this would be a really neat opportunity just to journal for your own self-reflection. Those were great questions.
Lindsay: Which set of rules are governing my life, the world’s or God’s?
And then, what are you worrying about? And that's where I put, let go and know this is God. So obviously by that time is when I had learned that translation and it was resonating with me.
Barbara: we're pretty good at worrying. Well, not that it does any good, but we have a lot of practice.
Lindsay: exactly. Another top spot for me was taking communion at the garden tomb. People believe that he was laid to rest in one area versus another like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the garden tomb, which is where things really resonated more.
Barbara: Thank you for sharing those experiences.
Lindsay: We were in Joppa when we initially got there. And we did an old city tour and wove up and down stairways and skinny little alleys. And we ended up at this spot that was Simon the Tanner’s house, and that's where Peter had his vision of the clean and unclean animals being all together. And that's the time which many people believe to be really the start of the Christian faith as there was no longer a marked division between Jews and Gentiles in the eyes of God. I thought that was so cool. I'm standing where Peter was.
Barbara: And long before that, that was where Jonah fled and ended up going on a ship and getting swallowed by a whale. Cause he was not too excited about what God had in mind for him.
Lindsay: Yep. That's exactly where. And also being in the Jordan river, watching first timers, whether they were children or adults, be baptized to me, that's always really moving. I jumped for joy in my heart when I see people coming to faith.
And this wasn't a specific location, although we did see it more so in Jerusalem, but to see how the Jewish people truly honor the Sabbath, like they take it way farther. You know, in America we have a hard time even relaxing really, but they will do so much work the day prior to the Sabbath so that they literally don't have to do any work. They even have Sabbath elevators, where it just goes from floor to floor. So you don't have to push a button cause that's work. I thought that was fascinating because we kind of blow off the day of rest. Like, Hey, if we get to it, we'll rest, and I think in our society, we learned that if we're resting that we're lazy or twiddling our thumbs, but God rested. And he saw that what he did was good. And I'm sure he has given us that blessing of rest to get rejuvenated and to not grow weary and get run down. But I guess we're determined to run ourselves into the ground.
Barbara: it seems to me like society sort of calls it self-care, and then some people think that self-care can be selfish, which perhaps it could be taken to an extreme , but it looks different for every person too.
So how am I to judge? I might be jealous if you have a whole day at a day spa . But I don't think the word self-care is in the Bible, but Sabbath results in care of self, especially when we're looking at it from a spiritual angle. And I will certainly confess, I don't spend a whole day just sitting in a chair, reading the Bible from morning until night, but the Sabbath time with God, how can we weave self-care into that concept without feeling guilty about it or selfish?
Lindsay: Absolutely. But if we view it as though, which this is the case that God put us on this earth to worship him and do the things that he's told us to do. He has told us to rest and take that time. So there is nothing we should feel guilty about. I need to always remember that when I'm just onto the next, onto the next- it was a little easier in Germany when everything was shut down on Sundays.
And unless you would just went for a walk with your family, there wasn't anything to do so to speak. And while that sometimes drove me nuts, because I couldn't go to the store I wanted to go to or whatever, I really understood it and came to recognize it as a blessing. It's okay to not have something to do.
Barbara: for us as consumers, but also for the workers that they weren't allowed to work that day, no trucking on the highways, and hospitals were open. I think the one grocery store in the airport was open if you were really desperate and gas stations, but that's about it.
So how about if that's our voluntary homework assignment and optional for listeners to see about taking some Sabbath time consistently?
Lindsay: I think that's a great choice. And my last one was going to Ein Gedi. David wrote a lot of the Psalms. You're in this desert-y dry region and you walk through some little cave like areas and you come to these beautiful waterfalls to me, blew my mind and it goes to what I was talking about earlier in using our knowledge of the world to make sense of the history and the stories in the Bible. And it's human nature to do that. But when you hear “as the deer pants for the water,” I think of the deer standing on a grassy Knoll next to a river - that is not Israel. It's not green and lush. It's very desert-y and dry and it looks desolate in many areas. And I could see the Psalms coming to life. When David's hiding and saying, I have so many foes, Lord help me. And he's in little caves hiding from whoever at the time.
And as he's feeling just refreshed and rejuvenated in this area that is so full of life in a region that really otherwise seems so full of death. It's not actually even that far from the dead sea, you know, with all the salt. And to see that you come through this clearing and there's the waterfall pouring down. You're like, where does this water even come from?
Barbara: That makes me think of the 23rd Psalm. He leads me beside still waters. And in green pastures, which we were there in the springtime, which is the most green time of the year, but for our eyes, we still saw a lot of desert.
Lindsay: Right. One thing that was cool, I remember we were driving down the road and we saw a shepherd up in the hills. I loved how preserved, you could picture it just as it was back then which I'd rather see what it was, even if it's broken and fallen. Cause you can really picture it. I really appreciated that not everything has been built up and is super modern. A lot of it is still very old and what you envisioned. It was amazing.
Barbara: I agree with you. How was the transition home in terms of spiritual follow-up to the trip?
Lindsay: the transition home was great. I felt like I was walking on a spiritual cloud for quite some time after. Israel was one of my top trips. It was able to continue to carry me through. And I felt like I was able to pass on that passion and excitement in studies that I facilitated or in groups of ladies that I was with- it kind of just felt natural to have God, this sounds weird, but God oozing out of me. Like I was so excited.
Barbara: I love that. Oozing out of us.
Lindsay: I don't always have that. I feel like we have to take advantage of it when we do have it. I came back and I was less fearful to talk to other people about God, even if I knew that they would be like, okay, whatever. And I'm like, I'll pray for you- God's got good things planned for you. And even a hardened heart will be like, Thank you. And they'll kind of give pause and God works in his ways.
I've always viewed myself as a little seed planter. I'm not like a huge evangelist, but I like to plant seeds and just let people know that they're loved and cared for and supported and that God is there with them. And I think we all have our different roles and being in your face is not for all people, and it's not for me.
But to be able to just spread God's love and let people know that there is goodness out there in such a destructive, awful world.
Barbara: there are different spiritual gifts. As far as I'm concerned, seed planting may not be expressly listed, but we're, sharing our faith with the world.
Lindsay: We were able to meet at one of our hotels, a group of messianic Jewish people. And a messianic Jew is a Jewish person who believes that Jesus was the Messiah. And I feel like it's the merging of faith, which prior to Israel, I would have viewed Jewish and Christian on completely opposite edges, but really as Christians, the Jewish faith, that's our beginning roots, our savior was Jewish.
Barbara: Had you ever participated in a Seder before the return from this trip when you and Theresa provided one to your Bible study group?
Lindsay: No, I had not. Teresa had participated in one prior to us going to Israel. There was a rabbi in Germany and he allowed people with different faiths to participate. And she got this little pamphlet that he provided called the Haggadah and I looked that up, what it actually means is the telling.
And we were like, wouldn't it be awesome to be able to bring a part of this back with us and share with our group? So we bought communion cups when we were at the Garden tomb. We wanted to share those with our group that were made out of olive wood. She had a Seder plate and then we gathered all the items for the different things, an egg and bitter herbs.
And it was a shortened version. Obviously in English so that we can understand what we were reading and we have some class participation and there wasn't anyone who felt uncomfortable doing it. It was like a seamless transition based on all this stuff that we had talked about and how our Christian roots are based in the Jewish faith. It just made sense to participate in something like that and bring Israel home to the people who weren't able to go.
And we all did readings and my favorite thing that I was surprised by, a lot of times in our society, you hear “don't look back, only look forward.” And as Christians though, God is constantly telling us, remember what I did for you yet, I'm always with you.
And when you think that you're doing this alone, look back and remember what I did for you. And that was the biggest thing I took from this Seder was their recognition and they make a whole meal out of it and they bring their families and friends together to do it. And it is strictly to remember all the things that God did for them and how he delivered them over and over and over.
And I feel like as Christians that often gets lost, when we're struggling through something. Or times are difficult. It's like, ah, God, help me. What can you do for me now? And sometimes we want that answer right then and we don't find it.
Barbara: You said something about letting go earlier?
Lindsay: Yes. We find ourselves in this spot and we're wanting him to rescue us right then. And he's like, In good time, let go, and I will do my good work in you and in your life and look back and remember all those times that you were struggling before and how you came out of it and how you were delivered from it.
And you thought there was no end in sight at that time, but look, that's past, that's behind you. And luckily as Christians, we know where it all ends in heaven with him. God knows exactly. And he's going to direct us because he can see it from beginning to end. We can only see what's right now. I have to remember that, especially on the days when I'm ready to wring a neck.
Barbara: one of my classes this semester talked about the damage that can be done when we look backwards, like you said, is if we're nostalgic for the past and can't let go of how things are used to be without leaving that room for a new future.
So there's different ways of looking back when God provided care over the centuries. versus, Oh, well, I wish it was the way it used to be because that time is over and maybe we can create something similar if it was a particular wonderful thing. But are we serving anyone including ourselves by carrying around negative baggage too, but even just looking back at positive things versus prayerfully looking to the future?
Lindsay: we need to look back and I 100% agree with you, not nostalgic, like, I wish I had what was, but seeing all the good things- or sometimes it's only years later that we can look back at something and know that what was seemingly not great at the time. You're like, I see exactly why God did that because it led me to this which led to this and look at my life now.
Barbara: I actually wanted to really support something that you had said earlier, but also to provide some encouragement. If someone is thinking, I don't know if I'm ever going to get to go to the Holy land, because you said things came alive for you. And I want to bring up the Bible verse that says “we walk by faith and not by sight.” And we had the incredible privilege of being able to see it. And sometimes I could even feel it in the air, but to encourage somebody that even without having the chance to see something in person, we've given a bunch of resources, there's even videos that you can watch.
But to have faith without having seen it, there is still honor. And then there's other things that we can't see anyway- we saw some of the physical, the ancient stones, or the sea, like you said, that was so incredibly powerful, but yet we still have faith in what we cannot see.
Lindsay: Absolutely. And that's what true faith is and moving to action like God has called us to do. You don't have to go to Israel to experience God. And I feel like church can be that way too sometimes, or certain things in our life where we're praying really hard for something, and we're just expecting God to move and we're hopeful and we feel diligent in our prayer life and our church life. And we're opening God's word and we're seeking him and we're not hearing anything. And I know that can be discouraging for some people, but, you know, just have that faith that he is still your Lord and savior. And we're not promised easiness and happiness on this earth, but definitely in our eternal lives with him.
Barbara: we have many examples in the Bible of people seeking God and saying where are you, God, or how long is this going to go on for? So we have no cause for embarrassment, I feel if there's a season of spiritual dryness - we're not alone in that experience.
Barbara: Thoughts about pilgrimage?
Lindsay: don't be afraid to go if safety is an issue for you. I never felt fearful in any location that we were. And I had known a lot of people that had gone prior to that had never had any negative experiences. So if that's something that's holding you back, I highly recommend you to walk on faith and just go if you're feeling called or you're able to go.
Barbara: Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and sharing this faith journey with us, Lindsay.
Lindsay: thank you for having me and blessings to everyone.
Resources:
The Rock, the Road, and the Rabbi by Kathie Lee Gifford and Rabbi Jason Sobel
Seamless (Bible Study) by Angie Smith
Finding I Am (Bible Study) by Lysa TerKeurst
Ray Vander Laan www.ThattheWorldMayKnow.com www.studygateway.com
The Bible in One Year, a free Bible commentary app
by Nicky and Pippa Gumbel www.bibleinoneyear.org
Lindsay shares God’s love & her gifts/talents