Scripture Scavenger Hunt Hike

Scripture Scavenger Hunt Hike

February 26, 2011

We have been trying to find things to do on the Sabbath that is helpful to keep our life centered around things that give glory to GOD and also for it to be a delight. I believe that we are to keep the Friday to Saturday Sabbath and that if we can do what it says in the following scripture then we will receive the blessing that the Lord promised in that scripture “for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.”

Isa 58:13-14  If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

We can not think of anything more delightful than hiking and being out in the awesome creation that GOD made for us to enjoy and take care of. We had invited my mom and sister and her kids to come with us on our hike so I wanted to look for something that would help keep it a little more Bible based and maybe help get the kids focused on seeing GOD in nature as we do.

I found on the internet a sight that suggested to have a Scripture Scavenger Hunt. I took a few minutes to adapt it with scriptures of common things we could find on a hike and we were ready.

We all load up into the car and head out to Boykin Springs Lake.

We get our stuff together and begin our hike.

The first scripture was :

Exodus 17:6 Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel

That was pretty easy to figure out what to look for and the little ones run right over to a huge rock in the spring and hopped on it.

 

We waited for everyone to get to the place where the trail started and decide which way to go.

Isa 40:8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

Good job Anna, you even found one that was faded.

 

Adam takes a stick he found and went to pretending to be Moses “smiting” the rock to bring forth water.

And of course then acting out the part of a huge gush of water coming from the rock. “Ppsshhhhhhhhshshhh!”

Anna trying to be “cool” with her cousins around.

Ecc 11:3 If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.

We even had to decide if it had fell to the north or south.

Psalms 40:2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

This was the best they could do for the pit, a small indent in the ground.

Luke 8:14 And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.

“Ouucchhee!” Anna says as she points a little to hard at the thorns.

Deu 32:11 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings.

Dan 4:26 And whereas they commanded to leave the stump of the tree roots; thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule

Adam’s “find” was of course one he could climb.

We found most of the clues and items of the twenty I had printed out and we wasn’t even half way through the hike. For the rest of the hike we just enjoyed nature and good company.

 

Adam scooted all the way down the hill to clear the pine straw so it wouldn’t be slippery for his aunt to walk up. At least that is what he told us, I think he just wanted to play bulldozer down the side of the hill.

Trying it down the other side wasn’t as easy, too many rocks. “Ohhhh a rock!”

Austin found these orange fuzzy things all over the place. At first we thought it was some kind of caterpillar, then we thought maybe a fungus of some kind. Well with the help of Google we figured out that these are a tree gall made by a wasp. Check out the link I attached to the word “gall” above because it is pretty interesting.

Austin also spotted this wonderful large mushroom.

I really wish I could identify the mushrooms but I do think they are such a beautiful part of GOD’s creation.

 

At the base of the other side of the tree there was more mushrooms with a spider camped out on it.

 

Adam finds a pine branch and says “A Mohawk!”

“King Julian!”

 

Austin and Grammy, he loves his grandmother very much and pretty much stayed by her side the whole time.

Mom was laughing because when she went to put her arm around Austin there “was more to him than I remember!” She didn’t take into consideration the backpack full of books he totes around all the time. I believe mom really enjoyed coming on a hike with us.

Challah Bread

Challah Bread

February 25, 2011

I personally love all things Jewish. Their traditions intrigue me and I feel most comfortable with their ways of worship. This is mainly because the Jewish traditions and feasts and such were meant to give glory to GOD in all they do. In many of the Jewish things I see JESUS just as the Bible said we would in:
Col 2:16  Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
Col 2:17  Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
I believe that the true Sabbath is Friday evening through Saturday evening (Gen 1:5, Gen 2:2-3) and I celebrate the feast days that are listed in the Leviticus 23 and I see their prophetic “shadow” of JESUS in them all. The Lord has been working on me about some of the traditions. I do not believe that the traditions that the priests made are bad, but I was brought to realize they are not all scriptural. Much of the traditions are from their “Oral Law” and not “Thus sayeth the Lord” written in my Bible.  My main desire is to follow my Bible to the best of my abilities and not to put the traditions of “men” higher than the Word of GOD. JESUS scolded many for doing that, like in:
Mark 7:9  And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
I flat out reject all things pagan therefore not taking on any of the more popular secular traditions and holidays that the United States is known for. With the Jewish customs, I need to know what is scripture and what is not. If I can feel the Lord in the Jewish tradition or see how it fits into the prophetic revelation of Christ and if it can be used as a teaching tool then I am all for it. Anything that brings a person closer to GOD or glorifies HIM is what I want to celebrate. I know GOD has put it on my heart that if anything becomes a mundane “ritual” and a burden or if I can not do these things with a delight for GOD in my heart, then I should not do them. So as with all things I am “testing the spirit” of the different Jewish traditions. I have learned if I do not understand or know why the tradition was done then it has no meaning and I feel nothing. So I must dig deeper and look for Jesus in all things or I have to quit doing it until it is revealed to me.
This past Sabbath I made a quick and easy version of the traditional braided bread called Challah. Now I have to admit, I do not have a clue as to why they do this or how it references to Jesus but I went ahead and did it because we like bread and we dip it in Velveeta Rotel dip and it is yummy.

Take three rolls of Pillsbury French Loaf bread.

Pop them out and line them up.

With Anna’s help holding the end, I braided the three rolls of bread.

Squish the ends together so they don’t unravel while it bakes. I found out through my Googling that I should have tried to get it to have twelve lumps. I will braid it tighter next time!

Turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself. I do have to admit it needed to be bakes a little longer but it was still yummy with the cheese dip.
I also have to admit, I felt nothing bringing us closer to GOD through this tradition. So I have to look into the meaning behind the Challah more than just a scripture about the sacrificial offerings that I believe are no longer in effect because Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice.
So while I am writing this blog I am also Googling and looking for answers. I found a site that talks called The Straight Dope that tells of the origin of the tradition. A quick sample of the site:
“The transition from Temple worship to synagogue and home happened over that next century or two. The priestly offering of showbread was replaced by the everyman offering of challah, and the Temple altar was symbolically replaced by the Sabbath table in the home.”
I also came upon a site called “Jewish Recipes”. I really liked how they put this statement.
“When we feel hungry for a slice of bread, this is really our soul’s desire for its spiritual essence. Food feeds body and soul. When we take challah we are saying: basic bread helps me have the strength to serve my Creator; by using the energy to do mitzvos (or good deeds), I am spiritually nourished. Food is not about simply keeping me alive. It is about helping me live for the purpose for which I was created. “
I decided to ask a good friend of mine, Tim Stewart, who also observes Sabbath. Here is his response to my question of “What does Challah mean to us now?”
“It's nothing commanded, but the challa has some purposes. 1--it's food, which may sound simple, but it's a reminder of God's provision. 2--it recalls the gathering of manna in the wilderness, and on the 6th day, they gathered 2 loaves because they couldn't gather on Shabbat. The two loaves are a reminder of God's leading them through the wilderness and providing every need in times of leanness. And it's braided together to represent how the community of God is braided together, knit together for the glory of God. And of course, then there's Yeshua, the bread of heaven!”
Although I am not 100% sold on how I personally feel about it I never count something as a worthless experience because if nothing else doing it made me search into the scriptures and Bible history more and now I at least know why. I will have to wait till next Sabbath to see how I feel about it but I really feel now that I know why, it will be a more spiritual experience. ~Shabbat Shalom~