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Digging Deep Israel Tour

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Digging Deep Israel: Next Stop–Capernaum

Posted on September 13, 2021

Capernaum. Place of miracles.  It was a place where Jesus cast out an unclean spirit in the synagogue. . He looked up and saw a paralytic man coming through the ceiling of the house where he was teaching and then both forgave the man’s sins and healed him.  He raised a little girl from the dead. He healed Jairus’ daughter. He stopped a bloody flow in the body of a woman who merely touched His garment. He healed Peter’s mother-in law.  He healed two blind men. He gave a discourse in the synagogue about the Bread of Life. Capernaum is a place from which the miracles of the Lord just exploded and his fame spread abroad Matthew 4:23-25).  

When the woman who was bleeding reached out to touch his garment, our Lord said he could feel that power had gone out from Him. Capernaum, in a larger sense, was a city from which great power from heaven emanated.

If these walls could talk! That’s how you feel when you walk through the ruins of the ancient Greek synagogue of Capernaum, likely built on the very same site as was the original synagogue in which Jesus did teach.  You see the plausible site of Peter’s first century house. Whether this early Christian home was the exact one Peter inhabited is, of course, uncertain; but you do know that both he and the Lord walked this street and you know you are in the place where blind men saw and where that woman who had the issue of blood touched the garment of the Lord. Those  of you who went with us in 2019 have not forgotten. Those of you who plan to go in 2022 are anticipating the thrill of being in the place of any miracles. 

The little city was on the northern tip of the Sea of Galilee and, apparently, the Lord made this town, the home of Peter, Andrew, James and John, his home for a time after leaving Nazareth. Thus it became the meeting-place of the miraculous and mundane aspects of the everyday life of the Lord. This strategic location was along a major trade route, so it was a perfect location for the miracles of the Lord to be published and In spite of the amazing events that were readily available to evidence the deity of Jesus, in this little town, Jesus, amazingly said that Sodom, the city burned for its extreme wickedness in Genesis 19, would have repented and been spared if the residents had seen the mighty works done in Capernaum.

And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day (Matthew 11:23). 

May we look to those mighty works and fear his judgment. May we never be so distracted by the unbelievers around us that we ignore the superhuman feats He has wrought so that we might have salvation. May we keep in mind that the Lord lived right in the middle of the worst of the world’s wickedness and yet his light from that dark place is still shining. And, even in the midst of the blackness caused by sin and disbelief, may we constantly remember His provision and blessings.

Passages about Capernaum: 

Mark 2:1-12

Mark 5:35-43

Matthew 11:20-24

John 6:28-59

Luke 4:31-49

Matthew 9:20-22

Matthew 8:14-15

Matthew 17:24-27

Here’s a few folks from our 2019 Digger’s group resting in Capernaum. (If you’re a digger and you want to go in 2022, here’s where to go. Late October/early November. Reserve your spot now! https://thecolleyhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/2022-Digging-Deep-Bible-Land-Passages-Tour-Brochure-Israel-and-Rome.pdf)

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Digging Deep Israel: Four Spots Have Opened Up!

Posted on February 13, 2019

It’s only three months until those of us who are going on the trip to Israel will be marveling, studying, and thanking with one another in Jerusalem! Thanks to John and Carla Moore, the plans are coming together! Because of a couple of cancellations, we now have space for one single man, one single woman, and one couple. If anyone wants to go, hurry on over to Bible Land Passages and let them know: https://www.biblelandpassagetours.com/biblelandpassagetoursdiggingdeep. They’ll expedite your confirmation and you could still be standing there on the shores of the Sea of Galilee with us in mid-May! It’s the trip of a lifetime for any student of the Word. My thirsty spirit plans to drink in the visuals to go with the Scriptures that are already the life-directing focus of my short time on earth. I’m glad that, of an estimated potential 32,000-ish days on this earth, I get to spend just ten of them in the same spot in which my Lord spent his 12,000-ish days. I know I can be a Christian without ever walking in Israel, but I’m thinking the walk there will impact the walk to heaven, if only because I love to learn with visuals. Those flannel-graph stories from my childhood are about to come to life in a way that the little girl in Sunday School would have never dreamed possible. The 59-year-old me can hardly believe it’s possible, either! 

So…four spots left for a very limited time. Flights will be finalized very shortly. Come sing 

Bless Thou the truth, dear Lord,

  To me, to me,

As Thou didst bless the bread

  By Galilee;

…knowing that truth will be blessed as we re-commit there on the shores where He walked. Most of all, remember,  it’s not important to walk on the dirt upon which He walked. It’s crucial—eternally important—to walk in His truth. 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: The Snare is Broken!

Posted on June 7, 2018

This beautiful song has been suggested for praise during our Digging Deep PTP session. Based on on Psalm 124:7, it’s about escaping and the powerful Father Who always provides that route (I Cor. 10:13). I hope you will be there to sing it with us. Please take a listen now and then before you come so we really can raise the roof one last time as a large group in our study of Great Escapes. That session will also be the kick-off for our 2018-2019 study, too. I’m hopeful that it can be our most influential yet. God is so good to let us do this together!

Don’t forget the Israel trip registration is now open exclusively for the Diggers and their immediate families. We will see the hill where the snare was broken.  We have a good group signed up already. You can click here for details about that:https://thecolleyhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/2019-Bible-Land-Passages-Colley-Israel-Studies-Program-and-Tour-General-Information-and-Registration-Documents-Revised-4.13.18.pdf

Finally, we’ve just begun month ten of our current study. It’s a long hard look at Calvary. I mean a hard look. We painstakingly study all the different ways our Lord could have avoided the agony. But he did not avoid it. He did not escape. He did not call the angels or choose to miraculously exonerate himself. He chose me. He chose my escape from death rather than his own. He chose my avoidance of eternal pain at the expense of his agony. He chose my life with the angels one day over his escape with the twelve legions he could have called that day at Calvary (Matthew 26:53). He chose me. It will do you good to spend some time on that reality this month. To say I’m thankful we can study this together is understating  the emotion. But the thankful heart affected by Calvary is often at a loss for words.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

New Date for Digging Deep–Israel: May, 2019

Posted on February 19, 2018

I am over-the-Israeli-moon excited about the Digging Deep Israel trip planned for 2019. Fueling my own personal lifelong yearning to walk where the Master walked has been the initial response of some of you. This trip, Lord willing, is going to happen! Glenn will be speaking several times while we are worshipping together there. We are scheduling some ladies devotional periods and we are trying hard to facilitate a podcast from a spot that will be pretty amazing. John Moore (https://www.biblelandpassagetours.com) will be sharing insights from his knowledge of the geography and Biblical history of the region. It’s all a happening dream-come-true for this little girl from Birmingham who never imagined she could look out on the sea that he calmed with His voice and that gave up the droughts of fishes to Him. It is happening.

But it                                    is not happening in March of 2019. It is going to happen in May of 2019. Wires got crossed by a silly little typo and the initial announced date was a big Colley conflict of speaking  dates. The trip IS being planned, as we speak, for the month of May 2019 and the approximate dates are the 13th-25th. I hope you can make it. As one friend put it, “Even better. The further out, the more money I can save up.”

Speaking of money, I’ll try to have estimated costs to you very soon. For now, just start saving. The trip will be open only to present or past Digging Deep participants and their families for the first few weeks of registration. Following that deadline, we will, pending available space, open it up to other Christians.

So watch for details and the initial registration period.  Pray about this trip. Pray for wisdom for those who are contemplating making the trip. Pray for efficient planning. Most of all, pray that this trip can facilitate deeper study and stronger faith.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Digging Deep–Israel…Let’s Try Again!

Posted on February 12, 2018

Here we go again! Actually it’ll be the first time for me to EVER go to Israel, but the second time to plan the trip. Some of you will remember (because some of you committed to go) last year, when we were planning this trip for June, 2018. Because of my father’s illness and responsibilities appertaining, we decided to cancel that trip. Sad for me and so blessed for my dad have been the events of late 2017 in his going on to the REAL holy land around the throne.

SO now, it’s time to plan again. This trip will not be open to others until we give the immediate families of Digging Deep women the chance to register. (You have to be a current digger or have completed a past year’s study to qualify for the early-bird registration.) If there are spaces after the Digging Deep deadline, we will open up the trip to others on a first-come/first served basis. The trip will be approximately twelve days and is being scheduled for sometime in mid-March of 2019. (I’m told that’s  a wonderful time, weather-wise, to go.) SO be watching for details. Cost, exact dates, deadline for diggers to sign up and pay deposit, etc…will be coming soon. All the “tentatives” will soon be “set in stone” within His Will.

We will be traveling with John Moore of Bible Land Passages. (https://www.biblelandpassagetours.com.) He will make sure we get the most from our visit and we will have the benefit of a New Testament Christian showing us the places where our Lord walked when He humbled Himself as a man. We will have times of worship and  women will enjoy devotionals together, too. Once again, we’d like to plan a podcast, if possible, from one of the sites of the Galilean region. 

I have heard all of my life that, should I ever have the opportunity and take the chance to go, I will never be the same. I hope that’s true. I want to be better. I know it’s the Word that makes me better, but I believe I’ll study more, even in the process of planning the trip and as I see the places where He lived and worked. I believe I’ll appreciate certain aspects of my study more in the future. That added depth of study is what I’ve been looking forward to as I dreamed about one day going to Israel.  I wish I had a dollar for every time I have said to Glenn “I’d really love to go the Bible lands.” If I did, I’d have a good deposit for this trip!

Let’s start saving and let’s go…together.