The World Race was over. I’d been in the states for less than a month. I’m transitioning fairly well and starting to feel good about being back. Project Searchlight out in Georgia was encouraging; good time of reconnecting with the squad, worship, and solid talks from WR alumni full of wisdom of how to continue walking in the freedom, community life, and growth gained from the World Race experience.
But God wasn’t done with me in this season as I thought, it wasn’t time to go home.
Searchlight had just ended and I was all set to go to the airport to catch my flight home from Georgia to California when I get asked by four guys to go on a 2 week training hike with them leaving that afternoon. They felt the Lord prompting them to invite me and I had about an hour to make my decision. Oh man, this would mean cancelling my flight and spending two weeks in the wilderness for which I was not prepared. So I prayed about it, ignored logic and rational thinking and in the end decided to go on this spiritual journey with the guys.
All I knew at this point was that these four guys were taking this time to prepare for an upcoming six month mission trip called Kingdom Journeys to church plant and spread the Gospel in China, India, and Tibet. There was the expectation of physical, spiritual, and mental challenges on this trip, but I could not have been ready for what was to come.
We camped out the first night. The next morning we were asked to surrender the majority of our gear (tents, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, all extra food, etc) to bring us down to two packs for the five of us. After a quick breakfast and being given three days food rations we hit the trail – or rather the river. The day was spent trekking through a river in search of a bridge an unknown number of miles away where we were supposed to meet our guide, the organizer of this madness.
We didn’t make it so we strung up a tarp and set up camp on a small beach on the river for the night. It was a cold night sleeping on a bed of grasses, leaves, and ferns atop the sand. The next day we got back into the river and at about 3pm we make it to the bridge. Our guide proceeds to tell us that the good news is we made it and the bad news is that we have about 14 miles left to go. I about got up and left right there. Day two on the trail, I’m done. I’ve already been going for about 8 miles and you want another 14? Nope, and I’m not even sorry.
Well, I didn’t up and leave right there. But I was definitely second guessing my decision to come on this thing. The decision to continue was ultimately left up to us. We sought the Lord; none of us are quitters and felt that we needed to push ourselves. And it was here, at a weak point, that God taught me a valuable lesson and showed his strength.
My knee was inflamed pretty good at t
his point and I had a nice limp going. Out of know where God tells me to stop limping and to walk normally.
“Humm, no. I can’t. I can’t handle that, it will hurt even more. That doesn’t make sense God.” God didn’t care, he just tells me again to walk normal. So reluctantly, I try it and what do you know, I was fine, the pain didn’t get worse! After walking a little further God tells me that it was my turn to take one of the packs.
“Hello God! My knee. Can I rest a little longer? It’s not ready.”
“Take the pack,” God said again. So, through gritted teeth, I ask if anyone needed a pack change. Of course someone did. I strapped the pack to my back and continue on. It didn’t take long before God chimed in again:
“Take the knee brace off.”
“No!! What?! No!”
“Take the knee brace off.”
“Not. Going. To. Happen. Crazy man!”
“Take the knee brace off.”
God and I wrestled with that one for a good while before I was able to remember his faithfulness and submit to him. I would go on to walked the rest of the approximately 11 miles after that without the brace and carrying a pack much of the time. I experienced almost no pain except for during the last mile or two. (We hiked all through the night and made it to camp just before midnight.)
Here’s the point: God wants obedience and he honors it. Simple as that. It’s not even just about the big things either, he wants the day to day stuff. Human nature is to thing about the big picture and spend our time trying to plan for the future. We will worry and strive to figure it out for hours, days, weeks. But God says no. “Commit your work to the Lord and he will establish your plans.” (Proverbs 16:3) God’s got the big plans, he knows we want to do great things in this world, find success and all of that good stuff, but what we are responsible for is to just do everything we do each day for the Lord. Have him in mind when we go to the store, when we walk down the street, when we sit in a cubicle, in a meeting, watching TV, talking on the phone, everything! As we do this each day the big things we desire will almost just fall into place. If you think about it, that’s a real stress reliever. No stressing about next month or next year. All God asks for is the moment.
A lot more happened during our time in the wilderness. We hike many more miles. We build a legit shelter. We slept on the hard ground each night. We feasted on small food rations of trail mix and a lentil concoction. We fished and ate fish heads. Practiced our knife and hatchet throwing skills (we’re pros now, you don’t wanna mess). We spent days outside of human contact, solo in the wilderness. All of this was used to teach us, stretch us, and challenge us, and it definitely did that. But throughout it all I continued to return to that same lesson, continuously committing each moment to the Lord. Often I caught myself thinking and worrying about the future, but God kept telling me that he just wanted me to give him this time here in wilderness.
Nearing the end of the adventure, I was really getting ready to be home. Knowing that the end was near was good and bad. When I know where the end is I have a tendency to lose focus on what God is currently doing. This is heightened as the end drew closer and closer. God was not going to allow this to take over or get in the way of what he wanted to do in me. At the end of our solo time he throw a major curve ball that I did not see coming….
