Book Review: Pilgrimage {Bethany House}

Pilgrimage: My Journey to a Deeper Faith in the Land Where Jesus Walked by Lynn Austin

ISBN: 9780764211188

Paperback, 240 pages

Retail: $14.99

About the book: 

We ALL encounter times when our spirit feels DRY, when DOUBT looms.

The opportunity to tour Israel came at a good time. For months, my life has been a mindless plodding through necessary routine, as monotonous as all-night shift on an assembly line. Life gets that way sometimes, when nothing specific is wrong but the world around us seems drained of color. Even my weekly worship experiences and daily quite times with God have felt as dry and stale as last year's crackers. I'm ashamed to confess the malaise I've felt. I have been given so much. Shouldn't a Christian's life be an abundant one, as exciting as Christmas morning, as joyful as Easter Sunday? 

With gripping honesty, Lynn Austin pens her struggles with spiritual dryness in a season of loss and unwanted change. Tracing her travels throughout Israel, Austin seamlessly weaves events and insights from the Word...and in doing so finds a renewed passion for prayer and encouragement for her spirit, now full of life and hope. 

About the author:

Bestselling author Lynn Austin has sold more than one million copies of her books worldwide. She is an eight-time Christy Award winner for her historical novels, as well as a popular speaker at retreats and conventions. Lynn and her husband have raised three children and live near Chicago. You can follow her on Facebook , Goodreads, and her website. 

My thoughts:

This book came up for review around the same time as one of our church's pastors took a trip to Israel. That is what caught my interest initially; it coincided with something I could connect with. I also appreciate Austin as an author. This book also came shortly after I finished Austin's book Return to Me. I'd read two other of Austin's books from the Chronicles of the Kings series, Gods and Kings and Song of Redemption, both which I absolutely loved. Within the last year I read Until We Return Home. There is also a review on my blog done by my daughter of Austin's Wonderland Creek. So while I've not read all of Austin's work {not even close!}, I have read a few and I enjoy them. 

This book is different than her others. It is personal, of course, so I expected it to be different. But there is a different feel to it even. At the start of the book I could feel the dryness she talks about. Reading through it, it would be so easy to think 'gee, she has it good; why is she down?' and she knows this. It is very easy for us to focus on the positives of others' lives while only focusing on the negative of our own. It is also easy to look at our lives and think that we can't possibly be feeling gloomy or in a dark or dry place because we have so much. But it isn't true; we can and we do. I think it took some effort for Austin to put down into words what she was feeling and going through. 

She takes the trip in reverse from what we see on ancient travels of Abraham: 

I will be exploring the land from south to north, the opposite way that Abraham explored it when he arrived in the Promised Land four thousand years ago. But it's the direction that the Israelites traveled as they left behind a life of slavery in Egypt, ended their aimless desert wanderings, and arrived at last to reclaim their homeland and worship their God. (pg 16) 

Each chapter is full of descriptions of the location, the travel it took to get there including the hardships such as the length of the trail they hike {in reference to King Herod's Masada fortress in the Judean desert}, the cramped space of the tunnels {in reference to the water system beneath Jerusalem}, down to the cold and dark dungeon under Caiaphas' house, and many more. She also makes mention of things from the present such as the Israeli army and guards all over the place and seeing a missile shoot through the air. At the end of each chapter is "A New Prayer for the Journey" that focuses on each thing she's taken away from each place. 

It's not often I take a pencil to a book I'm reading but I did in this one. Here are a couple places I marked:

The truth is, I really don't want to walk by faith. Do any of us? I prefer comfort and safety, a well-stocked pantry and an abundant water supply, a map that shows exactly where I'm going and how long it will take to get there- and I would like to choose the destination myself, thank you. But who needs God if I have all those things? (pg 21)And once we settle down and build homes and plant vineyards, we tend to get complacent. That's what happened in Israel again and again. And it's what I'm continually tempted to do. (pg 61)

There were many other memorable portions that I didn't mark but looking through it now to write this review, I realize I want to reread the book *smile*.

***Disclaimer: I received this book from Bethany House Publishers for free for the purpose of this review. All opinions stated are my own. See Disclosure/Policies.***