Pastor Jim Driskell

In the Fall of 2013 I went with a church group to Israel. Kudos to the tour company, they made sure we went everywhere and did everything. I took twelve rolls of film and so I thought I would start to share them on this blog.

The first picture is my favorite picture, I took this at dawn from a balcony at the hotel we were staying at, the hotel is on the other side of the Sea of Gaililee from Capernaum. Capernaum is where Jesus and the disciples met up. It is where Jesus spent about 60% of His incarnational ministry. The Sea of Galilee was my favorite part of the trip. Oh believe me, there wasn’t a bad part. But I could so relate to this. This is where the guys worked day in and day out. Jesus ministered. On the Capernaum side is where Jesus gave His sermon on the mount. Having been in the Coast Guard, spending so much time on small boats on the water, I can see the apostles out on their boats doing their daily work. It was so peaceful around the Sea of Galilee, I can imagine how wrenching the storm was that swept down on the disciples that night they were on the boat. Their boats were not very sturdy, if the seas had ripped their boat apart they would have drowned and they knew it.

Fishermen usually fished at night, so when I took this picture, I imagined how many times the disciples saw the same scene as they finished a night of fishing. Life is often this way, we do our daily work, faithfully live our lives, but there will be storms. Jesus can calm seas, and sometimes He lets us know that He is with us as we face those seas. In the meantime, let’s enjoy those calm, peaceful, early morning times looking over the seas in our lives.