journeys

Some of you know that at the beginning of this summer, Jodi, Kelsey and I got to hike the Grand Canyon. It was truly an incredible experience, and as we sat on the rim of the canyon the next day, and now as we have time to consider some of what we went though on that journey, the Lord has been teaching me a lot.

Even while we were hiking, the Lord was pointing things out to us. We had to start out at 4:00am in order to finish our hike before the heat of the day…even as it was, by 11:00am when we got to the bottom of the Canyon the temperature was already 100 degrees F. I couldn’t help but think about spending mornings with the Lord. Time alone with Him, first, before the phone starts ringing or I check my email, to be poured in to and filled up before the ‘heat of the day’. If we had tried to hike between 10:00am and 4:00pm we would have suffered from heat exhaustion, struggled with dehydration and probably hurt ourselves. If only I could think that way about my day spiritually, that I would be putting myself in harm’s way if I wasn’t up early, spending my time with the Lord, before attempting to start my day.

Then, as we got to the bottom, all we wanted was refreshment. We needed cold water, needed to cool our feet…we couldn’t get from our campsite to the creek beside it fast enough. I don’t think I have ever thanked the Lord for water before in my life. Although it wasn’t exactly “still waters” (Psalm 23) He definitely made us lie down beside them. It was sweet refreshment at Phantom Ranch beside the Colorado. Cool water, and even a canteen for the mule riders that had air conditioning! How often does the Lord provide perfect refreshment after a time of struggling and hard work? It was exactly what we needed to get us ready for the next part of our journey.

As we started out at 4:30am the next morning, feeling refreshed, but sore, we started the journey upwards. This second day of the trip was hard, but strangely, after the work from the day before, and as our muscles warmed up a bit, it wasn’t quite as difficult. Maybe it was knowing a bit of what to expect, maybe we were just that little bit stronger from the day before…I don’t know what it was, but we made it to our 2nd stop earlier than we expected, rested for a few hours and then decided to finish our journey that day. We had approximately 4miles to go up 5000 feet in elevation, not just an easy walk. There were moments that we all struggled, had to stop, needed encouragement, needed food or water – none of us could have done it on our own. Having teammates walking along side you, pushing you on, sometimes pulling you up – so often we think that if we can do things alone then it’ll be easier…but really, we leave ourselves weaker than we could be with others. I mean, Jesus had 12 guys to walk with Him, Paul travelled with at least one companion and we are to be the “body of Christ”…why do we think we can do things alone? We learned while we hiked up that canyon that a ‘threefold cord’ (Ecc 4:12) is definitely much stronger.

But it was the final part of our hike that was by far the most revealing to me. We just got home from camps on Sunday, after 10 weeks of travelling from Southern California to Seattle to Thunder Bay to New Hampshire to New York I am longing for rest. To stop, to take time for myself…the great dream of our western society – to retire! The end of our journeys should let us rest and think about ourselves for once. But that’s not what the end of our journey brought. The last 1.5 miles, up almost 3000 feet, was in the complete darkness. Without our headlights we couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces. We lost all sense of perception, we had no idea how far it was to the top, couldn’t get our minds around the thoughts of continuing on as we’d round one corner of a switch back to find another one stretching out in front of us. It was a struggle every minute of that climb. Where do we get the idea that the end of our journey should be all about us? There’s no evidence of that in scripture. Moses died after completing what the Lord had for him, the disciples all suffered martyrs deaths and the one who didn’t (John) when he should have been in his retirement years after serving Christ faithfully his whole life, was instead thrown into exile! They seemed to realize that our retirement plan as Christians is eternity in the presence of God…why can’t I see that? That hike in the darkness was the most difficult, but let me be amazed by God’s sustaining power even more, and the joy of crossing that finish line was that much sweeter. I don’t deserve to rest, I am blessed by God’s ridiculous grace to be allowed to rest. Yes, He makes me take refreshment because He knows I need to be refilled in order to be poured out again, but if we stop thinking about what we are entitled to and start realizing that every drop of blessing or good in our lives is God’s grace…perhaps we can view our journeys just a little bit differently as we hike this year!