Was it all just a dream?

This past Monday—June 7th—at 9:00 A.M., I was seated in an auditorium at a conference in Virginia Beach. I have been to work-related meetings like this a hundred times before, dutifully dressed in my slacks, button-down shirt, and tie. I was taking notes and listening attentively. But at about nine o’clock, one hour into the conference, my mind began to wander, and I asked myself, “Was it all just a dream?”

You see, just thirty-six hours before, on Saturday night, I stood on the roof of the Gloria Hotel in Old Jerusalem, just inside the city wall, taking the picture of the Tower of David that you see above.

On Saturday night, I was completing a three-week study trip in Israel. I took a course entitled “Historical Geography of the Bible” through the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem. And, I’m having a hard time finding the right superlatives to describe the trip, which covered just about every square mile of the country of Israel. To say it was informative does not even scratch the surface in relation to what I learned. To say it was exhilarating doesn’t do it justice. To say it was fascinating or unbelievable or incredible . . . these adjectives don’t provide the needed depth of expression.

While in Israel, I walked around the top of the wall in Jerusalem. I crouched and waddled through an Old Testament era, one-thousand yard, underground water tunnel, with water ranging from ankle high to knee deep. I read Psalm 22 aloud inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the probable location of Jesus’ death on the cross (that’s the Psalm that begins, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"). I swam in the Mediterranean Sea. I floated in the Dead Sea. I took a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus walked on the water. I stood on the steps of the Temple, the same exact steps where my Savior walked about two-thousand years ago. And I snooped around in a desert cave where some of the Dead Sea Scrolls were found—a cool respite during days of steep climbs in 110+ degree heat. But all of this is just a sliver of the entirety of my Israel experience between May 17th and June 5th.

So, if I had to give one word now that comes to my mind regarding the trip, I think it would be privilege. It was a real privilege to go on this trip, to receive teaching from a renowned expert in the field of biblical geography, to see the sites that I saw, and to do the things I was able to do. Most people don’t get the chance to do what I did. Going to Israel in no way makes me a better Christian than any other believer, but I do feel that I learned things that will allow me to teach the Bible better for the rest of my life. It truly was a privilege.

But all good things must come to an end, I suppose—at least down here on earth. Sunday morning I boarded a plane in Tel Aviv, and a seeming eternity later, I landed at Raleigh-Durham airport at 10 P.M. Barbara drove me back to Chesapeake. We arrived at two in the morning and I got to sleep at three. Then it was up at six, and back to the standard work routine. I couldn’t afford to take another day off from work after I had so generously been allowed to take three weeks of vacation time for this trip. So you probably can understand that on Monday morning, after the whirlwind, I would find myself thinking, “Wait, did that really happen, or was it all just a dream?”

In the next couple of weeks, I will be writing a number of blog entries with some reflections (and photos) from my Israel trip. I hope you enjoy them.