Walking the Jesus Trail Every Day

My Sister-in-law invited us to travel with them sometime to walk the “Jesus Trail” in Israel. This is a 65-kilometer hiking trail in the Galilee region of Israel which connects important sites from the life of Jesus. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to walk through the rugged and beautiful landscape of Galilee in Israel? For us Alaskan hikers, it sounds like the way to learn more about Jesus by experience.

But the truth is, each of us can walk “the Jesus trail” every day in our lives, wherever we are.

Do you remember the 70-mph winds this winter? Remember how your warm, lighted home was a needed refuge? Jesus offers us refuge and protection from the storms of life wherever we may be. He is “a cloud of smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night…. He is a defense…. A shadow in the daytime from the heat, and …a place of refuge…of cover from the storm and from the rain” (Isaiah 4:5-6 KJV). He is wherever we are when we are His disciples. He gives us peace, healing, safety, and rest.

Jesus miraculously removes our animosity, hatred, or resentment. He lived perfectly, and His Atoning Sacrifice gave him the power to take all that away for us. In her book “The Hiding Place,” Corrie Ten Boom recalled meeting with a Nazi guard after World War II. She had been incarcerated in a concentration camp, with all of the starvation, beatings, mistreatment, and death that accompanied that place. Her beloved sister Betsie died there.

She wrote, “It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door…at Ravensbruck…. And suddenly it was all there—the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face. He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. ‘How grateful I am for your message [of forgiveness], Fraulein,’ he said. ‘To think that, as you say, [Jesus] has washed my sins away!’ His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people…the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

“Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.

“I tried to smile. I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.

“As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

“And so I discovered that...when He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”

Another stop along the Jesus Trail in our lives: the miracle that Jesus fills us with His love. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” asks Paul in Romans 8:35. The answer is that nothing from any place or dimension can separate us from God’s love, shown through Jesus Christ, our Lord. The prophet-historian Mormon encourages us to “pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ” (Moroni 7:48, The Book of Mormon). We are being invited “not only to pray that we may be filled with His love for others but to pray that we may know of God’s pure love for ourselves,” wrote Susan H. Porter, General Primary President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“My soul was filled with love, and for many days I could rejoice with great joy,” wrote the prophet Joseph Smith after his vision of God the Father and Jesus Christ. God’s love is there for us, and we can be blessed to feel it if we seek that blessing.

At the end of the trail, Jesus grants us a place with Him and our Father in Heaven. Jesus calls it “many mansions.” A place for us, that Jesus paid the price for, and then shares with us. We are his joint heirs, His friends, His brothers and sisters if we “do whatsoever I command you” (John 15:14).

I echo the prophet Gordon B. Hinckley’s words: “Of all the things for which I feel grateful…, one stands out preeminently. That is a living testimony of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Almighty God, the Prince of Peace, the Holy One. Jesus is my friend. He is my exemplar. He is my healer. He is my leader. He is my Savior and my Redeemer. He is my God and my King.”

Every day, through the infinite virtue and grace of Jesus Christ, we can walk with Him.

Beth Wright loves her family and believes in Jesus Christ. She loves being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.