Sometimes the blessings God gives you seem hard to hold. In some cases, the difficulty urges us to abandon the blessings. Beth Shean gives us a great example.
The Lord provided Beth Shean for the Tribe of Manasseh. But the excellent location proved to be a double-edged sword. Because the spot was so good, every nation wanted control of Beth Shean. And whoever held it always seemed to contend with those who would wrench it from their grasp.
Perhaps its strategic location gave Beth Shean its name, “House of Security.”
But security only works when you trust in God.
As with most ancient sites in the Holy Land, geography explains the reasons for Beth Shean’s significance.
In ancient Israel, Joshua allotted the city to the tribe of Manasseh (Joshua 17:11). But Manasseh failed to drive out the Canaanites who lived there, and half of Manasseh settled across the Jordan Valley in what is modern Jordan (Judges 1:27).
An earthquake in AD 749 toppled many of the city’s great structures and put the death blow to its prosperity. At the base of the tell today, columns still lay on their sides where they fell.
In other words, what God’s people abandon, the world clambers to control.
When the blessings God gives us are difficult, it doesn’t mean we should abandon them. Wayne Stiles
With pen in hand in 1896, George Adam Smith wrote of Tel Beth Shean:
There are few sites which promise richer spoil beneath their rubbish to the first happy explorer with permission to excavate. (The Historical Geography of the Holy Land, p. 362)
A century later, the happy explorers proved Smith correct. From 1989 to 1996, archaeologists partially excavated the ruins below Tel Beth Shean. As a result, walking among the ruins feels like stepping back in time. Beth Shean offers the largest, and some of the best-preserved ruins in all of Israel.
Walking among the ruins of Beth Shean is simply stunning. It allows any visitor to be, in George Adam Smith’s words, a “happy explorer.” As many times as I’ve been there, I always look forward to returning.
The most impressive ruins discovered in Beth Shean come from the Roman and Byzantine times.
The Roman-Byzantine ruins lay in the shadow of the ancient tell itself, the original site of Beth Shean.
Beth Shean’s prime location made it the envy of everyone. It was hard to control. I think about our lives the same way. When the blessings God gives us are difficult, it doesn’t mean we should abandon them.
God’s blessings make us dependent on Him, not independent of Him.
The difficulty is designed to drive us closer to the One who has blessed us.
Tell me what you think: What blessings have God given you that often seem too hard to hold? To leave a comment, just click here.