Travels

I lived the first year and a half of my time in my new home by myself. There were many times that I just wished I had a friend to do some traveling with. Well, my summer roommate has been an answer to that. She has a car to boot which has made traveling super easy. 

She found a list of the top things to do in my city. My city is quite the boring place and as such the list of top ten things are also on the boring side. She has been slowly working her way through the list of things to do. I have joined her some of these adventures. 

Here is the list:

1. The Canyon

2. The Bridge

3. The Archeological Museum

4. The Big Park

5. The History Museum

6. The Valley

7. The President’s Museum

8. The Carpet Museum

9. Blandus Ancient City

10. The Outlet Mall

11. The Bridge (same as above but misspelled)

12. Sebaste Ancient City

13. A Movie Theater

14. The Shopping Center

15. A Dead Guy’s Tomb

16. Picnic Park #1 with Fair Rides

17. Picnic Park #2

18. A Bar

I have already written about the canyon here and here. Last weekend we decided to find the bridge with the pretty waterfall. We found it quite easily and managed to hike down to the base to wade in the water a bit. I wish I had known what was there because I would have taken a change of clothes and some picnic food. After cooling off in the water, we decided to find the cave we had seen from the Bridge. We were disappointed to find that it was just a small indention in the rock. 

We saw a brown sign on our way to the bridge. The brown signs often indicate something is worth seeing. The sign had the word “türbe” on it. Not knowing what that meant I wondered aloud if I should look it up. She said it was only 8 kilometers away and we should just go for it. The signs led us to this gravel lot with a cemetery. It turns out türbe is the word for mausoleum. So we did end up at a dead guy’s tomb but I think it was a different dead guy’s tomb. We were not impressed. 

The tire in front set the whole tone for me.

She went to the archaeological museum without me since I had been before. We have both been to the big park several times and stopped by there to take a quick photo one day. We also took pics in front of the shopping center we frequent. She had not been to the outlet mall so we went and took the requisite photo there. 

The pics of the valley looked cool and we had plans to go there yesterday. The problem with living in such a remote place is often the map locations of these places are wrongly mapped. She had a free day this past week and went to check out the valley to see if she could find it. She said it was nice but not that impressive. 

In light of that, I suggested we find something else to do. We ventured off of my city’s list of things to do and found some places about two hours away. The first was a waterfall. We were both under the impression that there would be a place to swim. We made it to the waterfall and found it to be nice to look at but there was no place to swim. We took a few photos and headed to the second destination which I thought had a natural pool in which to swim. We took off looking for brown signs along the way.

I loved that there were picnic tables right
beside the waterfall. In other places the
tables were actually sitting in the water. Also
I don't know if you can tell but there are
watermelons chilling in the cold water.

We found a sign for Tripolis on the way. It was a new archaeological site so there wasn’t a whole lot to see. We thought it was an important city but I now realize we were thinking of Tripoli, the capital of Lybia. 

I realized that we would be passing Colossae, the place to which the book of Colossians was written. I had heard there wasn’t much there besides the brown sign designating where the place was and a stream of cold waters. The cold waters were probably in John’s mind as he wrote the letter to the Laodiceans in Revelation telling them he wished they were either hot or cold. Laodicea lies between the hot springs at Pamukkale and the cold waters of Colossae. 

Cold waters of Colossae

From there we headed to a cave that had the white travertine formations similar to the ones at the Cotton Castle otherwise known as Pamukkale. I found a pin on the map and we took off to that place not knowing if we would actually find the cave. It turns out the pin was in a wrong location but brown signs saved us and we found the place. Both the cave and the waters inside it were a nice cool break from the heat of the day. The formations inside the cave reminded me of something you would see manufactured at an attraction at Disney World. She clued me in that the cave smelled of sulfur. Not having a sense of smell I would have been none the wiser. The map pin I found said there was a pool at the cave and I saw pictures of a beautiful natural pool. It turns out no one was allowed in the natural pool but there was a man made pool filled with bad smelling sulfur water. We passed on that chance to swim.

Looking Inward First

“And Jonah stalked 

to his shaded seat

and waited for God

to come around 

to his way of thinking.

And God is still waiting for a host of Jonahs

in their comfortable houses

to come around

to his way of loving.”

-from Thomas Carlisle “You Jonah”

I saw two things recently online that made me do some thinking. The first was the Jonah quote. I read it and thought of sharing it thinking it would be good for some of my friends to read. I see so much hate-spewing and calling people out online. I know many people who harbor prejudices against other demographics of people. I know many people who are at home and comfortable and worship the god of comfort. I wanted to passive-aggressively call them out. 

Then the Spirit spoke to my own heart. Candace, why are you so quick to think of others when you read something like this? Aren’t you at times like Jonah? Aren’t you sometimes the one sulking? I know you have made great strides in shirking off the god of comfort but there are times you still worship that god. There are still times that you withhold your love. I’m still waiting for you to come around.

On another occasion, I was praying for a family member. I was telling God how I really wish they would stop denying their guilt in certain areas. Again, the Spirit asked me how often I still deny my guilt at times. Yes I should pray for this person but not before first searching my own heart to see if there is any remnant or stronghold of evil in me. 

Too often, I find that I can recognize the sins of others far more easily than I can my own. I think we have great practice in thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought. We often use others as a comparison stick. I’m not as bad as so and so. They are the ones that need to confess. They lie all the time and I only occasionally tell white lies. They are in more need of confession and repentance than me. In doing this, we fail to see God accurately in his holiness. He has called us to be holy. Any indwelling and unconfessed sin is still abhorrent and rebellious to him. May I always search my own heart, confessing sin, before calling others out. 

The other thing I read is the quote below. I think it is a quite fitting summation of what the Lord is teaching me:

“I want to hate my sins more than I hate the sins of others who sin differently than I do.” -Burk Parsons

In continuing with this theme, I have been reading the book of Numbers about Israel in the wilderness. How many times have I read that Israel wished they had died because life in Egypt, in the wilderness, fill in the blank was better than what they were experiencing. How quickly they lost sight of all the Father had done, provided, miracles. How quickly they doubted his goodness. I feel growing judgment in my heart towards Israel. How could they have been so thick as to choose death or slavery over what the Lord called them to? How quickly do I forget the Lord’s goodness? How quickly do I rail against Him when things don’t go my way. I can watch Israel from a distance and judge them for their complaining but they are just a written reflection of my own heart. Oh how that old lie still lingers. Is God really good? If he were really good, he would have given____. He’s holding out on me. 

Elsewhere in Numbers I read where they came to the cusp of the Promised Land, the land of rest and plenty. Because they trusted their eyes and forgot who God was and what He had promised, they missed it. We know all of this because we get to read from a bird’s eye view and know how it eventually unfolds. Then God asks, like a broken parent whose child continues to rebel, “How long will this people despise me?” I imagine him with great sorrow saying, “I have given you everything and yet you insist on believing the worst about me.”

It’s made me wonder how often I am on the cusp of taking hold of God’s promises but because I have let the world and it’s cares make me lose sight of those promises, I miss the breakthrough? How frequently do I lose sight of the cross? If I truly abided in Him would I ever worry, stress, fear, lose heart? How often am I that rebellious child still believing the lie that God is holding out on me? I wonder how many times I have given up on praying for friends or family members because I think it just doesn’t matter. 

I wonder if I could just pull back the curtains and see what lies around the bend, how I would live and labor differently. My friend and I recently visited an ancient city. There were signs for a theater but we couldn’t find evidence of the theater. She kept walking and said, I don’t want to miss it because I’m not willing to walk an extra 5 steps. Well, we didn’t find a definitive theater (perhaps it was the pile of rocks in the hillside?) but it wasn’t for lack of effort. Anyway, what she said has stuck with me these past few days. Why not take 5 more steps in prayer for someone. Who knows if that might not be the breakthrough? Why not stay the extra 5 minutes with someone and see if a conversation might happen.  

I have been reading C.S. Lewis’ Weight of Glory. Here is something he said that I have been thinking on…

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. - But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”

We don’t know who God will regenerate. We don’t know who we bump shoulders with that may at any second be transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. And we get to be partakers in this glorious process. I frequently forget that this work is a privilege. I confess that sometimes it feels laborious and unrewarding. I confess that I have so often given up when I might very well have been on the cusp.

I’m thankful for a God who is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and forgives our iniquity but he is not a pushover parent who does not give consequences for my sin so I will learn the right way. 

I have one last thought. The Israelites didn’t want to go into the land because they thought their children would be prey to the people. God promised that the children would be the ones who entered the land and in fact would enjoy peace there. But in their disobedience they in fact made their children suffer more. The children were forced to go with them back into the wilderness for 40 more years when they could have enjoyed sweet rest. The thing that sticks out the most to me is that the thing they feared most was a self-fulfilling prophecy for them. In trying to protect their kids they made them suffer more. I see this pattern in America as it seems like things are falling apart. There is so much fear in everyone and the more they fear and the less they trust the Lord, the more those things are happening. God help us to FIX our eyes on Him, to throw off fear, anxiety, and worry and advance rather than retreat.