If you want to meet with God, eat some peanut butter in the middle of the woods. At least, that’s what I did.
I like to keep my life mostly hidden from the world and anyone in it. I don’t like talking about the things I’ve dealt with, I don’t like reminiscing on unwanted memories, and I don’t like letting people get close to me. For a long time I’ve been obsessed with protecting myself. I keep everyone at arms-length, because it’s safer that way. If someone leaves, and they always seem to, it doesn’t hurt too badly because I never let them get too close anyway. See my logic?
I’ve lived most of my life in such fashion. Meet new people, put on a mask for them, keep them relatively close but not too close, watch them leave, bottle up some resentment and put it on the shelf next to the disappointment, repeat. This in the model I was planning on using for Training Camp. It was a subconscious decision, but it was what I was going to do nonetheless. Until a wise friend called me out on it.
I had told this friend about a small problem I was having, not knowing it had any connection to my fear of intimacy (which, as it turns out, is what my great logic was masking.) He, however, knew right away. He pulled me aside and told me he understood everything I was going through. He understood how I thought, he understood how I treated people and why, he understood the kind of people I gravitate towards and why, he understood so much that I would have never lead on to, because once upon a time, he went through the same thing. And then he told me how to get better at it.
“Here’s what you’re going to do. It’s going to suck for you, but you’re going to go find a spot in the woods, by yourself, you’re not going to take your watch, your Bible, your journal, your phone, or anything else. Just you and God. You’re going to get an anchor word and you’re going to sit there for as long as it takes for you to let God in.”
I had no idea what an anchor word was. Turns out, an anchor word is a word you associate with God to anchor you to Him. When you get distracted, which happens to me 99% of the time, you say that word and it brings you back to God. My anchor word was “peace”. Anytime I got distracted from what I was trying to accomplish, anytime I started thinking about anything other than God, I said the word “peace” and it brought me back to square one. Let me tell y’all, this was the hardest part for me. My mind is constantly going about a million miles per hour so for me to have to basically shut it off was near impossible.
But I found a spot in the middle of the woods. I had my anchor word, my sleeping bag, a jar of peanut butter, and a spoon. I was ready to meet with God.
I sat there for about four hours. I was silent for a long time. I sat there wondering how to go about meeting God, how to let Him in when I didn’t want to let anyone in, how to let Him love me when I struggled to let anyone love me. I was uncomfortable and cold and bored. But I trusted my friend, and I knew this was something that needed to happen. After a long while of awkward silence, I started talking. I talked about the stuff I didn’t want to talk about, I talked about the stuff I didn’t want to remember, I held each story or secret or piece of me in my hand and I explained what it was and then I said, “and if You want it, it’s Yours.” After I presented everything that came to mind, I continued to sit there and eat my peanut butter.
Then the breeze came. Not a strong breeze. The gentle kind that ruffled the leaves of the trees around me as I sat in my spot in the woods; and a single leaf fell and landed on the foot of my sleeping bag. To some people, it’s just a leaf that happened to land on my sleeping bag – right on my toes. But to me, it was an I Love You from my Creator. He picked up all of my darkness, all handed over to Him in one big, smelly heap. He took it out of my hands, He looked at me and smiled, and He said, “I still love you.”
And that’s all it took, folks. Four sweet hours in the middle of the woods with a jar of peanut butter and a spoon, and there I met with God.
