The camping trip.
It seems like it was ages ago, and yet it feels like it was today.
As I mentioned previously the camping trip was rough.
The second day of the hike was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life.
I don’t mind heights when I am strapped in to a roller coaster or in an airplane. I don’t mind being up high in buildings, either. But when I know I am quite high up from sea level; when I can see the drop off the cliff to one side; when I can see the height of the mountain on my other side; when I am on a footpath that is only wide enough for one person… that is when I start to freak out.
I had a moment like this when I was on my very first mission trip in 2007. I was in Costa Rica and my team was climbing Mt. Pico Blanco. We were taking a path that was not a path for tourists, only the locals knew about it really. I remember not knowing what to expect, then being so scared when I could turn around and see how far up we had come and how just one slip of my foot and I could be falling right back down. I remember that hike being a mostly scary, but not really that physically hard for me. I remember a particualr spot where we had to climb up some rocks and it was about a 300 ft. drop off to the my left. I had to stop and sit on the rocks to collect my nerves before I could move forward another step. I was so concentrated on not falling down that it was the only thing that consumed my mind, which only made me even more fearful. I knew that the only way to get out of it was to keep moving forward; the faster I moved, the faster it could be over. The entire hike took about 7 hours with a brief rest at the top to get our picture taken. On the way down we hiked through the rainforest where there was so much slippery mud. Eventually it was almost a game to see who could slide down the farthest on our butts, like sledding; who could stay standing up the longest. I can remember a few laughs and that the view from the top was amazing, but the whole process of it wrecked my nerves and still gives me a little anxiety to think about.
So, to get back to the camping trip that was just a few weeks ago… I was taken right back to my memories and anxiety of my hike in Costa Rica. I thought my fear would completely overcome me. At one point I had to stop because I couldn’t take being able to see the drop off the cliff. When you are carrying a 45 lb pack on such an unstable terrain your balance isn’t always at 100%. This fear was crippling and made me cry multiple times on the hike. I was so afraid.
As we walked on… and on… and on… and on… our path was uphill, then downhill, up, up, up, straight for a while, down, etc. There was one point where we were walking right next to the river and it was pretty level for a while. In that short stint, I only had one song stuck in my head.
“I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more, just to be the man who walked 1,000 miles to fall down at your door”
I thought that was strange but God started speaking to me through it. Often times I view my relationship with God as a struggle of me seeking after him and striving towards him, but failing and then being upset about it. As if, somehow, it was my responsibility alone to get his approval and win a stamp of salvation like a stamp in my passport. Sometimes the way I seek the Lord is very much out of a place of me running away from something he has asked me to do, then eventually deciding it on my own, going back to that thing and realizing that the thing was what he had for me all along and if I had just gone with it from the beginning, he could have sped up the process. My heart feels like it is seeking so hard for the Lord sometimes, but that there is no way the goal of meeting him is attainable. Like a lure on a string with my heart in front of the Lord, then when he gets close to it I yank it back to me, almost teasingly.
But, with those lyrics running through my mind and those understandings coming to light in my mind, I pressed on in the hike and pressed in more to what God was speaking to me. With each step I took I realized that the striving, the teasing with my heart, the trying to do things to accomplish my salvation myself, was not only false but was totally flawed.
I don’t have to work for God to love me,
to accept me,
to approve of me,
to meet me.
He would walk 500 miles,
then He would walk 500 more
just to be the man who walked 1,000 miles to fall down at my door.
Me! Me, of all people!! He would seek me. He does seek me. If you are feeling like you are striving for anything in your life, check your heart to see what it is and why the striving exists. Your Abba doesn’t want you to feel like you are doing it by yourself, he wants to be right there. He took a long journey for you. He walked a lot of miles, but only because He loves you so much that he was willing to do that for your salvation.
Walk it out!
Much love,
-A
