When Travel Teaches You More Than You Expected
Travel has a funny way of teaching lessons you never planned to learn. Sometimes it happens through a breathtaking view or a quiet museum. Other times, it’s through a single sentence from someone you’ve just met.
That’s what happened to my wife and me on our recent trip to Europe. What began as a simple vacation slowly turned into a reflection on beauty, balance and faith.
Seeing Through Local Eyes
One of the best choices we made was occasionally hiring local guides. There’s something special about experiencing a place through someone who truly knows it—the history that shaped it, the quirks that define it, the rhythms that keep it alive. It transforms sightseeing into storytelling.
At one point, I asked our guide what seemed like a straightforward question:
“What’s your city’s main economic driver?”
She smiled, pointed at us, and said,
“You are.”
That stopped me cold. She wasn’t being rude—just honest.
The Blessing and the Burden
Everywhere we went, the impact of tourism was impossible to miss. Even during the shoulder season—that supposed lull between the summer rush and winter calm—the crowds were thick. Narrow streets overflowed, and the selfie-stick-to-human ratio was alarmingly high.
Our guide explained that tourism keeps the city alive. It feeds restaurants, sustains small shops, and fuels the local economy. Then she added, more softly, that it also changes the city. Prices rise. Locals move away. Authentic corners get polished for convenience. Slowly, the city becomes a stage set for visitors.
It’s the modern version of the Midas touch—everything turns to gold, but at a cost.
So I asked her, “Has it been worth it?” Has the juice been worth the squeeze?
She paused before replying,
“What choice do we have?”
Her answer lingered.
When Good Things Go Too Far
That conversation stayed with me. How often do we take something good—something pure—and pursue it so intensely that we lose sight of what made it special in the first place? We overconsume beauty until it becomes artificial. We chase meaning until it becomes performance.
Spiritually, we often do the same thing. Something that begins as good can quietly turn into something else—something that distances us from God. Not obviously, not suddenly, but slowly.
Scripture reminds us that sin can look appealing for a time, but it always takes more than it gives. Sin plus anything still equals sin. It never produces life.
Faith That Heals
That’s why I love the story of the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. According to Levitical law, she was considered “unclean.” She wasn’t supposed to touch anyone—certainly not a rabbi. Yet she believed that if she could just touch the tzitzit, the fringes on Jesus’ cloak symbolizing God’s promises, she would be healed.
Her faith—not her perfection—made her whole.
While cities wrestle with how to balance the blessings and burdens of tourism, Jesus never struggles with balance. Where we overreach, He restores. Where we take too much, He gives freely.
Finding the Balance We Can’t
I still don’t know how a city can preserve its soul while welcoming the world. But I’m grateful that with God, we don’t have to find that balance on our own.
He’s already done it—turning our striving into surrender, our excess into enough, and our brokenness into beauty.
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Pastor Mark
Mark, the eighth of nine children born to Reuben and Henrietta Meeks—dedicated church planters with nearly 30 congregations established across California’s Central Valley—is a preacher's kid who grew up immersed in faith and service. With over forty years of experience teaching, discipling, and ministering to communities, including the hospitalized and incarcerated, Mark responded to God's call to pastoral ministry. He holds degrees in civil engineering and public administration, as well as a Master’s in Theology from Fuller Seminary, equipping him to serve with both practical insight and spiritual depth.
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