Home > Work > Pilgrimage: My Journey to a Deeper Faith in the Land Where Jesus Walked
1 " Joy explodes throughout the book of Psalms like fireworks, and is the most potent anti-missile defense system there is. "
― Lynn Austin , Pilgrimage: My Journey to a Deeper Faith in the Land Where Jesus Walked
2 " Depression, I've learned, is sometimes caused by anger that we keep locked up inside. "
3 " If He strips us of all our own resources, we just might learn to lean on Him. And to start praying again. "
4 " I listened to God and to my husband, not the the enemy's whispers, not to other people's opinions. "
5 " God also puts His people in the middle of things for the same reason that He put the tree of temptation in the middle of the garden--so that our choice to follow Him would be a conscious, daily one. Every time we publicly choose to live for Christ, He is glorified. "
6 " While I don't have to leave home to find God's oasis, I do have to search for it, pursuing God in prayer and trusting Him to take care of me when all other hope is gone. He promised that "If...you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deuteronomy 4:29). "
7 " Thirst is a symptom of need, the body's way of telling me to take action. If I don't listen, I end up dehydrated and all sorts of bad things can happen, including loss of consciousness and death. Spiritual dryness is also a symptom: Something is wrong! Take action! I'm drying up! I need God. My soul's longing for God is as never-ending as my physical need for water. And spiritual dehydration leads to spiritual death. "
8 " The journey has been a parody of my life recently: rushing, waiting, wandering, feeling lost and losing sleep, wondering if I'm getting anywhere. "
9 " So often I have felt alone in my journey, yet I've been afraid to let anyone see my fear and weakness. "
10 " We serve a promise-keeping God, a God of miracles. My vigorous attempts to save myself, like Herod's, will never succeed. But what is impossible for man, is always possible with God. When it seems as though all is lost and God asks, "Can these bones live?" let my answer be, "Sovereign Lord, you know. "
11 " But the truth is, I can't sip from an hour-long church service on Sunday morning or dash off a hasty prayer or gulp down a daily Bible verse and expect them to sustain me any more than I can expect a glass of water to last for a week. "
12 " ...combat worry, such as keeping a prayer journal and rereading it when I'm under attack. "
13 " The land promised to Abraham and his descendants is once again theirs. God always keeps His promises. Even in times of cataclysmic upheaval and change, God's love and faithfulness are unchanging. "
14 " The reality of life as His disciple, as one of "the sheep of his pasture" (Psalm 100:3), is a life of complete helplessness in a harsh environment, trusting the shepherd to lead us and feed us. "
15 " No terrain is too bleak, no distance too far that it will stop God from rescuing His own. "
16 " Maybe it's because spiritual growth and vibrant faith in God don't happen in isolation, but under pressure. "
17 " Our faith often grows stronger when we have to defend our beliefs, the same way that patriotism flowers and blooms when our country is threatened. "
18 " Scriptures were just words on a page and my prayers failed to lift... "
19 " The wilderness is a place where we can lean on God and trust His promises, but it's also a place to discover that the arms He provides and the ears that listen to our fears sometimes belong to flesh-and-blood people. "
20 " Besides re-arming myself with joy, I need to know the holes in my defenses, the places where I'm vulnerable and where the enemy has successfully attacked me before. "