Hotels on the Mediterranean Sea in Tel Aviv.
Here are some of the things that Grandma and I have done over the last few days. We left from Oakland Airport on a Norwegian Airlines flight 30 minutes early. They were so well prepared that we were all seated and ready to go early and so off we went. Not every trip starts this well or goes so well but every trip requires lots of preparations. You start with an idea of where to go and when to go and how to go and what you might do and who you might go with. Judy’s brother Bob and his wife Kathy were planning to go on a study tour trip to Israel in May 2019 so we told them we would like to go with them. We also wanted to fly Norwegian Airlines because they have premium seating with lots of leg room and we wanted to return to Sweden to visit more of Judy’s long-lost cousins. Preparations. Joining a tour group has the advantage of letting the tour company make most of the preparations. But we wanted to go to Tel Aviv for a couple of days before the tour started and we needed to rent a car in Sweden to go visit our relatives- my cousins in Jonkoping and Judy’s cousins near Orebro. Then Barbara and Jake decided to meet us in Stockholm for a week before flying back to Oakland, so there were more preparations. We stayed overnight in a hotel at the Stockholm airport and flew to Israel on Sunday; it took us two traveling days to reach Israel but we were rested and ready to see Tel Aviv. After waiting in line to receive our entry visas and our luggage and holding on during our wild taxi ride to our hotel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, we were ready to walk on the beach to the historic town of Joppa.
This is the port where Jonah got on a boat to sail away from the place God had told him to go. Jonah thought he was making preparations for a safe voyage to Spain so he wouldn’t have to do what God told him to do. And you know that God interrupted his trip in a very unusual way! Not all preparations we make are good ones- it depends on what we are preparing to do or where we are preparing to go.
These passageways are in the walls of the monastery and between the old town
houses and shops in Joppa. Everything
was made of stones because there were no trees big enough for lumber in
Israel. The boats in Joppa now are
small- but once much larger ships loaded and unloaded here. When King David prepared to build his palace
and the first temple as a dwelling place for God and a place for worship of
God, he brought cedar and cypress logs and wall boards for decorations and
carving to Joppa to load onto wagons to carry to Jerusalem. They came by sea.
Many artists have studios and many
craftsmen have workshops and display their arts and crafts in Joppa. Here is a hanging tree pot- just a little too
big to fly home with us. We stopped for a fish dinner at a restaurant on the
beach of Tel Aviv and walked back on the promenade to our Hotel. We were upgraded to the room on the top floor
with a hot tub- so we sat and soaked in the hot water and watched airplanes
coming in to land at the airport- they seemed to be too low for the tall
skyscrapers in Tel Aviv. We hoped the
pilots had made accurate preparations for landing safely!
Isaiah 40:3 says “In the desert
prepare the way for the Lord, make straight in the wilderness a highway for our
God” and Ephesians 2:10 says “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”. God has made preparations to save us from our
sins and to bless us and to give us many good things to accomplish and enjoy, but
we must prepare to follow God’s ways and believe that Jesus is the Savior. Prepare your heart to be ready to listen to
God’s voice and to trust and obey Him.
Prepare to follow Jesus who is our Good Shepherd.
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