She had been on a biblical Israel trip for exactly four days when she sat down on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and wept — not out of sadness, but out of something she hadn’t felt in years: relief. Pastor Renae had preached from that shoreline dozens of times. She had described the morning mist, the fishing boats, the sound of Peter’s sandals on wet stones. She had conjured it from commentaries and concordances and the sanctified imagination of a woman who loved her Bible fiercely. But she had never been there. And standing there — finally, physically there — something inside her that had been wound too tight for too long quietly let go.
In This Article
The Guilt of Going
Renae almost didn’t go. She had been offered a spot on a small group Holy Land tour through a colleague’s church, and she had said no twice before finally saying yes. The reasons she said no were the same reasons most pastors give — the church needed her, the timing was wrong, the money felt frivolous, and something about spending that much on herself felt like a betrayal of the people she served.
What she didn’t say out loud, even to her husband, was that she was exhausted in a way that sleep wasn’t fixing. She had been in ministry for seventeen years. She loved her congregation with everything she had. But she had been giving out of empty hands for a long time, and she knew it. The sermons still came. The pastoral care still happened. But the intimacy — that private, interior closeness with God that had once been the wellspring of everything she did — had gone quiet.
She told herself she didn’t have time to go. The truth was, she was terrified that going wouldn’t fix anything either.
What the Land Does to a Preacher
There is something that happens to a pastor on a biblical Israel trip that is almost impossible to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it. The Bible stops being a book you hold in your hands and becomes a landscape you move through with your body. You walk the same limestone streets. You feel the same sun. You stand in the valley where David stood and look up at the same ridge where the Philistines camped, and for a moment, the distance between you and the text collapses entirely.
Renae said the first shift happened in Nazareth. She stood in the synagogue — or what archaeologists believe is the site of the synagogue — where Jesus stood up and read from Isaiah. ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.’ She had read that passage a hundred times. But standing there, in that space, with dust on her shoes and the sound of a city outside the window, she heard it differently. She heard the courage in it. She heard what it cost him to say those words in that room to those people.
She said she cried all the way to the bus.
The Moment at the Garden Tomb
The moment that broke her open — the one she still can’t tell without her voice catching — happened at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem. It was early morning. The group had arrived before the crowds, and there was a quiet over the garden that felt intentional, almost curated by something other than scheduling.
She stepped inside the tomb. She read the words carved near the entrance: ‘He is not here — for He is risen.’ And something in her chest that had been clenched for the better part of three years finally released. She sat down on a low stone bench inside an empty tomb, on the other side of the world from her church and her responsibilities and her relentless sense of duty, and she let herself be held.
She said later that she didn’t pray anything in particular. She didn’t ask for clarity about her calling or courage for the next season. She just sat in the emptiness of that place and let the resurrection mean something to her personally, not just professionally. She sat there as a daughter, not a pastor. And God, it seemed, had been waiting a long time for that appointment.
Jesus himself said it plainly to people who were pouring themselves out in his name: ‘Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.’ (Mark 6:31) That invitation wasn’t metaphorical. It was geographical. He took them somewhere. He moved them out of the crowd and into a quiet place, because he knew what exhaustion does to people he loves.
What She Brought Home
Renae came home different. Not unrecognizably different — she was still herself, still direct and funny and deeply committed to her people. But she came home with something she hadn’t had in years: fresh eyes on the text she had been preaching from her whole life.
She said the first Sunday back, she preached from John 21 — the breakfast on the beach, Jesus and Peter in the early morning by the charcoal fire. She had been to that beach. She had stood there in the morning cold and watched the light come up over the water. And when she described it from the pulpit, something in the room shifted. People leaned forward. They could feel the damp air. They could smell the fish.
She said she didn’t preach a better sermon that Sunday. She preached a more alive one. And she thinks those might be different things.
If you’re curious about what a well-guided Holy Land tour actually looks like for a pastor or ministry leader, the options are more accessible than most people assume — and a good travel advisor who understands ministry life makes all the difference in how the trip is built and what you come home carrying.
For pastors who want to go deeper on the spiritual preparation side of a trip like this, BiblePlaces.com is one of the most respected resources available for understanding the geography and historical context of the Holy Land before you set foot there.
You Are Allowed to Go
If you are a pastor or ministry leader reading this and something in Renae’s story resonated — the exhaustion, the drift, the sense that you have been preaching truths you’ve stopped fully inhabiting — then hear this gently and directly: you are allowed to go.
You are not abandoning your people by replenishing yourself. You are not being self-indulgent by walking where Jesus walked. The same God who made the Sabbath sacred, who fed Elijah before the long journey, who led his disciples away from the crowd to rest — that God is not surprised that you are tired. He is not disappointed that you need to be filled back up. He built that need into you on purpose.
Psalm 23 does not say he drives us beside still waters. It says he leads us there. Gently. Patiently. Often against our own instinct to keep going. The restoration of the soul is not a reward for rest well-earned. It is what happens when a depleted person finally stops moving long enough to receive what God has been trying to give them all along.
Renae went to Israel because she finally said yes to something she had been saying no to for the wrong reasons. She came home with her preaching alive again, her love for her congregation renewed, and a private interior life that had been restored to something she recognized.
She says she should have gone years earlier. She also says she thinks she went at exactly the right time. That’s the grace of it.
If you’re ready to start thinking about what a trip like this could look like for you, reach out to Grant at MinistryVacations.org — expert travel planning built from the inside of ministry life, for people who’ve spent a long time giving everything they have. Every trip also includes the Gratitude Giving Program, so your rest can bless your ministry at no extra cost.
