Wayne Stiles | Connecting the Bible and Its Lands to Life

Friday, May 3, 2013 — 4 Comments

Your Life in Christ—It’s Supposed to Hurt

Any woman who has experienced childbirth understands it.

Any helpless man who has witnessed childbirth, like me (twice), understands it to a degree. That’s why the Bible uses the experience of childbirth as a metaphor of our lives.

Your Life in Christ—It’s Supposed to Hurt Your Life in Christ—It’s Supposed to Hurt

(Photo: By D. Sharon Pruitt from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, USA. CC-BY-2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

The whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves . . . groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. —Romans 8:22–23

We would all love to have an emotional epidural to where we didn’t feel the pain of life. But that won’t happen.

God doesn’t give us a way to avoid the hurt.

But He does tell us what to think so we can make it through the struggle.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013 — 3 Comments

Mount Arbel—A Panorama of Jesus’ Ministry

The sheer rock cliffs of Mount Arbel stand like a sentinel over the western side of the Sea of Galilee.

Mount Arbel has watched over numerous battles, travelers, and even disciples.

Mount Arbel—A Panorama of Jesus’ Ministry Mount Arbel—A Panorama of Jesus’ Ministry

(Photo: Mount Arbel and its tremendous panorama, courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

Mount Arbel is one of those places never mentioned in the Bible. Its presence was so obvious, it was assumed.

Certainly, anyone traveling around the Sea of Galilee or along the International Highway would have used Mount Arbel as a landmark, identifiable from most any spot on the lake.

Jesus would have passed it thousands of times.

Monday, April 29, 2013 — 5 Comments

Come with Me to the Holy Land This Fall!

This Fall: October 26 – November 6, 2013

A journey to the Holy Land will strengthen your relationship with God.

I’ve seen it happen many times.

A tour to the Holy Land opens your eyes to the Word of God like never before. It forever changes the way you read your Bible. It’s like taking a tour inside the Scriptures!

99% of Christians who travel to Israel agree — their tour strengthened their spiritual life.

Jerusalem as seen from Mount Scopus

Many Christians are familiar with names like the Sea of Galilee, Jerusalem, Jericho, and the Mount of Olives. But these place names add very little to understanding the Bible—much less to spiritual growth.

I shared this frustration. I knew the names, but they only distracted me as I read the Bible because I didn’t understand their significance. I dismissed them as irrelevant.

Then I went to Israel . . . and it all changed.

The Bible became more than words on a page. It became more real than it ever had before in my spiritual life.

I want to help make that same connection for you.

“Experiencing the land of the Bible was a great blessing. But traveling with Wayne and Cathy Stiles was the icing on the cake. Wayne provided outstanding devotionals and connected the places, events, and history with the Scriptures, showing their relevance for our lives.” —Wayne and Debbie Moore, La Porte, Indiana

connecting the bible and its lands to life Come with Me to the Holy Land This Fall!

(Photo: Discussing the Second Coming of Jesus on On the Mount of Olives overlooking the Temple Mount)

Download a free itinerary, see the trip details, watch videos, and imagine yourself walking where Jesus walked in the Holy Land!

You will see major sites as well as places very few people get to see.
This is a one-bus tour.
Experience the Word of God will all your senses!

Click here to learn more. Time is short!

I hope you’ll plan to join me this fall for a your life-changing tour to the Holy Land!

Got a question about the tour? You can leave a comment here.

Sunday, April 28, 2013 — Leave a comment

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft [Book Review]

The only horror in Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft is that he preaches hard work as the foundation to good writing.

on writing On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft [Book Review] With a steady dose of encouragement, King challenges writers of all levels to employ discipline as the key to developing one’s craft.

He also affirms his disdain of the passive voice and sings the praises of standard writing volumes like Strunk and Whites’ The Elements of Style and William Zinsser’s On Writing Well.

If you skip the first 100 pages and head straight to the “Tools” section of the book, you will find distilled guidance on writing fiction. With the exception of his advice to just let the plot happen (something only buffoons or geniuses like King should attempt), the book offers useful principles anyone can use. For example:

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time (or the tools) to write.”
“Until you get [a place of your own to write] you’ll find your new resolution to write a lot hard to take seriously.”
Set a daily writing goal and don’t quit until it’s done.
Write what you know, but use imagination. Describe what you see, but then get back to the story.
Never tell the reader a thing if you can show it.
Good dialogue comes from listening to real people talk—and to how they talk.

The book would get five stars if not for a couple of gripes.

Friday, April 26, 2013 — 14 Comments

The Ideal Life You Want Isn’t Enough

Most people live for dreams. It’s a quest, really.

Clinging to ideals of how life could and “should” be, they chase those dreams like a carrot on a stick. Always within reach, but never gotten.

The Ideal Life You Want Isnt Enough The Ideal Life You Want Isnt Enough

(Photo by Photodune)

I guess we’re all wired to pursue the ideal. The world calls it following “your heart,” and we Christians refer to it as “the will of God.”

But in truth, we generally settle for nothing less than our version of how life ought to be.

Any search for the ideal needs only to look at the Garden of Eden to see the futility of that pursuit.

God points us a different direction.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013 — 7 Comments

The Jordan River—Your Place of Transition

Other rivers have more beauty. Many are longer. Most are cleaner.

But none has garnered as much affection as the Jordan River.

The Jordan River—A Place of Transition The Jordan River—Your Place of Transition

(Photo: The Jordan River, courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

It wasn’t the beauty of the Jordan River that inspired centuries of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to include it in their verses.

Its significance began as a simple geographic barrier, which—practically speaking—represented a border (Joshua 22:18-25). In fact, the serpentine river still represents a border between Israel and the nation of Jordan.

In Scripture, however, the river’s presence on Israel’s eastern edge stood as an enduring metaphor of transitions.

Significant transitions, in fact.

Monday, April 22, 2013 — 6 Comments

Blame Shifting our Blunders

Finger pointing is hard-wired into our hearts.

In fact, it started early in human history. Like, really early.

Blame Shifting our Blunders Blame Shifting our Blunders

(Painting by Domenichino. Public domain)

In the Garden of Eden, God confronted Adam and Eve after they sinned, and their reaction set the course for an entire race of blame-shifters.

We’re still shifting the blame (and getting blamed).

The solution is the same today as it was then.

Sunday, April 21, 2013 — Leave a comment

Thirty Days in the Land with Jesus [Book Review]

It’s pretty rare to find a devotional book written about the Holy Land.

Thirty Days in the Land with Jesus Thirty Days in the Land with Jesus [Book Review]

In fact, one of the reasons I wrote two of my books was to help fill the void in application of Holy Land study.

True, there are other books that do this. It’s just that so many of them waffle between inaccurate and superficial.

Charles Dyer offers us a refreshing alternative.

As I read Thirty Days in the Land with Jesus, I felt like I was on tour in Israel with a great Bible teacher. The book takes 30 events in the life of Jesus and gives you a geographical and devotional tour of the places where they occurred.

Bethlehem, the Temple Mount, the Judean Wilderness, the Sea of Galilee are only a few places Dr. Dyer leads us on this virtual tour through key places in the life and ministry of Jesus. “Watch your step as you get down from the bus,” it reads in one place.

I felt like I could easily take the book in hand and stand at the very places in the Holy Land. The book could serve as a pocket guide devotional.

If you’re looking for a unique devotional on a part of the Bible most people miss, Thirty Days in the Land with Jesus is a journey worth taking.

I read the Kindle edition, but you can also pick up the softcover edition.

P.S. Charles Dyer has written two other books about the Holy Land also worth having in your library (I have them both):

Question: What place in the life of Jesus would you most like to see? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

Friday, April 19, 2013 — 18 Comments

Why God Will Lead You Unwanted Places

God will lead you places you would never choose. Unwanted places.

Because the Lord is much greater than you and I can imagine, it makes sense that He wants for us more than we ever dreamed.

Why God Will Lead You Unwanted Places Why God Will Lead You Unwanted Places

(Photo by Photodune)

God wants you to trust Him, and you’d like to do so. He wants you to glorify Him, to know Him, and so do you. But really, you often want to trust God only when you understand Him.

Too often, that desire to know the Lord slices His list of attributes in half.

When you and I settle for anything less than all of God, we also settle for less than all we can become.