My foot slips. Run off from the waterfall is hitting me square in the eyes, so I shut them tight. I'm climbing blind. I stick my sandaled toe back in the mossy slick crevice and move another few feet up the rocks.The water pressure pounds into me threatening to throw me off. Seconds earlier I had been admiring the beauty of the seemingly never ending waterfall, now I was in the thick of it fighting to stay in one place. Before my team and I decided to climb this particularly treacherous section of the rocks I glanced to my left. There is a tour group all holding hands moving up the falls at a snails pace looking like a bunch of elementary school kids following their teacher to recess. They're smiling sure, but it's a forced smile, a smile that says, "Boy oh boy, I wish I wasn't a sheep. Boy oh boy." Every move the guide makes they make too. But that's dull. You see, this is Dunn's River Falls, and here we pave our own trail.
One of the very few rules for Dunn's River Falls is that you need a guide to lead you to the top. Something like this would NEVER fly in America. No hand rails, no guard rails, liability everywhere, bone crushing rocks under every slippery footfall. If you have a guide though he will lead you past any part that's deemed to hard for soft tourist feet. But where is the fun in that? We decided that if we were going to climb up a waterfall we had to do it right. So whatever path the groups took, we took the opposite. This made for some fun and heart pounding moments. We got scraped up and bruised but we were also smiling the hardest at the end.
Back to what happened right after my foot slipped. Ready for this? …nothing. I found my footing and pushed on to the top. There is no dramatic fall or flailing to my watery death to be found in this story. I'm sorry if I've disappointed you, but I write this blog post to get a higher meaning across not regale you with tales of me breaking my shins but still gritting my teeth and pressing on to glory.
Once at the top, after a good hour long climb, I looked around. The jungle pressed in close to the rushing water creating a serene scene of tropical bliss. It was quiet at the top. I couldn't help but think about how our climb of Dunn's River is a lot like the Christian journey. There are the groups (those playing it safe) who follow the easy route. Sure it can be fun, but it ultimately isn't fulfilling at the end when you look back and realize how you missed out on some greater moment or some life lesson, or best still a relationship with the creator of the universe. You've followed the crowd just like a million people before you and God didn't create you to do that.
Then there are those who follow the path less traveled, the path that Christ laid out before us. It can be dangerous, you can get hurt, but once you've reached your end goal (eternity) you look back and realize all those hard and difficult moments were so worth it. It's all about the journey. God created us to do the seemingly impossible, because it is through the seemingly impossible that God makes everything possible. He doesn't want us to play life safe, He wants us out in the world getting scraped and bruised but never relenting in our Love for others and God. He created us for so much more than the safe life.
It is in these moments that I remember why I'm on the mission field. Sometimes I get discouraged and miss the comforts of home, but then God reminds me that taking the road less traveled is exactly what He wants me to do. And I couldn't be happier. Also, I get to do sweet things like climbing Dunn's River Falls.
I shall be telling this with a sigh,
Somewhere ages and ages hence,
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference!
