…”My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9
Month 3 of the race, my team and I were blessed to be serving with 3 different churches in Cusco, Peru. The preaching, teaching, evangelism, and manual labor in which we were able to partake were out of this world; two thumbs way up for all that the Lord revealed to us through those ministries! Two more thumbs way up and a dozen or so high fives for all that the Lord revealed to me about the constant CHOKE HOLD of FEAR in our day to day lives. Through His creation and the wild adventures He set up for us in result of walking in obedience, He showed us how to lean on Him and TRUST! (Jumping heel click;WOO!)
Peru is beautiful and filled with such diverse attractions. Machu Pichu is all the rage nowadays, and as a newer Wonder of the World, rightfully so. The hike up was beautiful enough, but wow, once you get to the top you are just left standing there gawking and speechless. The steep sky scraping mountains tied together with plunging valleys guide your eyes along implied lines like a work of art; truly exemplifying Gods awesomeness and majesty. If you are ever in Cusco, I highly recommend. Yet, there was another spot outside of Cusco that had caught my eye a few years back while thumbing through NatGeo, and has been on my bucket list ever since. So, when presented with the opportunity to hike Rainbow Mountain “Vinicunca” on one of our days off, I grabbed my mates Lindee and John, and we geared up.
I had some slight reservations about hiking Vinicunca, mainly because my previous mountaineering experience had left me kind of sour. The month prior, in Ecuador, I had hiked Cotopaxi and Quilota- two very large active volcanoes. Don’t get me wrong, it was awesome, but the whole trip was wet, cold, and full of angst. Halfway up Cotopaxi, snow hit and we had to turn back down the volcano to camp at the base. It would have been fine except for the lack of oxygen and dry firewood needed to stay warm. The worries of frostbite and hypothermia were real. I just didn’t want Rainbow to be a repeat…
Our alarms started blaring around 4am the morning of. Sleeping on the ground of the Chapel, we rolled off our sleeping pads (pre-dressed (SMART)), ready to start our day. After a few phone calls in broken Spanish with the driver of the caravan, we got picked up and started the 3 hour drive up the mountain. There wasn’t a vacant seat to be found in that 12 passenger van. Adventure enthusiasts from all over the world, Europe, Asia, USA, and other parts of South America, were packed in there with us. Spirits were high and the atmosphere was ecstatic; which, being so early in the morning is seriously astonishing. I’ll credit it to the adrenaline.
Stepping out of the van upon arrival, our feet sank into the mud. It was rainy season in Peru. One of the worst ever on record in fact. Torrential floods and mudslides were plaguing the whole nation, devastating homes, families, communities, and entire cities. Much of my squad’s ministries were focused on disaster relief- pitching in where they could to bring the Lord’s gentle hand to a broken world. Needless to say, climbing conditions were less than ideal and we knew the danger. Yet, the ascent started instantly.
This was my highest hike yet. The elevation range started just over 14,000ft and terminated right around 17,000ft. Each step when nearing the top felt like running a marathon, heart thumping and lungs gasping (too dramatic? I think not). But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Pallets of colors were brilliantly blended together, strewn along, and melded within the landscapes. It is a literal work of art from the Lord. If the elevation didn’t take your breath away, the pureness of what your eyes beheld certainly would. The whole way up I couldn’t help but think, this is why roads less traveled are so worth it.
A little under 3 hours in, the top was in sight. All day the weather had been precisely sunshine and rainbows, making for a most jubilant experience, not to mention a great photo-op. While we were still about half a mile out, we heard a storm billowing from behind. The sky was brewing something fierce and encroaching quickly. With what I had experienced a couple of weeks prior, I knew we had to get a move on. So, pushing ourselves past the brink of exhaustion, we finally reached the top, and not with a moment to spare. After snagging a quick photo, clouds whipped up the mountain from all sides and shot out ice and snow. It hurt. A lot. And that’s when our day took a dump and things quickly went DOWN-HILL. Especially us. Seriously, because our guide was yelling at us that we needed to get off the mountain…
It was bad. Once we descended off the summit, the snow turned to rain-and when I say rain- I mean wall of water. We were soaked and freezing, we hadn’t planned on being so pulverized by the cold. The whole trail gorged and weaved between the mountains. It was steep any way you cut it. Already having been muddy and slick all day, this storm just magnified the elements 10-fold. Soon enough water roared down the steep mountain sides, and with nowhere else to go, came straight to us. Being an Arizona boy, I knew all about the dangers flash floods, I also knew that there was no other way off the mountain; time was of the essence.
We trudged and sloshed down Rainbow through the muck and mud, falling more times than I could count. Never in my life have I been so cold and miserable. More than a few times my mind pulled a Walter Mitty and wandered into a better than reality dream-state. The fantasies usually included a big warm helicopter landing and rescuing us from misery… With end-goal in mind, we just kept plowing through the pain, until finally the trail disappeared altogether. I knew we weren’t lost, because there was only one way down, but what was once our trail had been replaced by a river… With no other option, we clung to large boulders and navigated our way back through the rapids. Soon after, we reached the van, limping and tails tucked between our legs. The ride home was nothing like it had been that morning- it was somber really, with the occasional nervous giggle provoked by excitement of still being alive.
I’m playing it cool now, but not going to lie, it was a fearful experience! It was just one of those situations in life that was unexpected and scary. We didn’t know what the outcome was going to be and we definitely didn’t have any control over the situation. So many things popped into my head of what could happen while in the moment. My mind ran rampant with fears of pain and suffering, ultimately resulting in, well… death! These are the moments fear feeds on, flooding our minds with worst case scenarios, completely voiding our memory of God’s faithfulness.
You see, Jesus knew that fear is a faith killer and it has cunning potential to keep us from living BOLDY the way He calls us to if we let it. Even in our slightest moments of vulnerability: a job interview, a financial pinch, a school exam, a family affair, sickness, fill in the blank… fear can slither in and rob us of hope. Jesus notes this topic of fear more than any other topic in the New Testament, not because it is most important, but because He wants us to understand that fear is a choice. We can choose to be afraid, or we can choose to trust God and His goodness, no matter what. If we often find ourselves afraid in this life; the issue at hand isn’t that we are fearing too much, but rather we aren’t trusting God enough. Following Jesus is understanding that we cannot LIVE if we rely on our own strength, but rather our only hope and strength comes from the Lord. HE HAS ALREADY DONE ALL OF THE WORK FOR US TO LIVE RIGHTEOUSLY, all He calls us to do is BELIEVE IT and WALK IT OUT!
(Matthew chapter 6. Jesus lays it out for us perfectly.)
Luckily, I had dabbled with this thought previously to Peru, but hadn’t put it into full swing- connecting my head to my heart until coming down Rainbow. I was running through all of the worst case scenarios and what “I” was going to try to do about the situation, when the personal revelation finally registered. Man, God is faithful. He loves me. Why am I worrying about things that are out of my control? He has brought me through so much in life. How easily I had forgotten that just a couple of weeks prior He had delivered me from such a similar situation when I was in Ecuador. Trust, and know that even out of the most broken situations, He will bring forth something awesome and good (a fun story at the very least). “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matt 6:27).
In that moment, recalling to mind other times of my life, I felt just like the Israelites in Exodus. Leading up to Ch. 16, God delivers the Israelites from 400 years of slavery in Egypt. With Pharaoh in hot pursuit and keen on killing the Israelites, God brings them to the Red Sea. With Pharaoh and his army fast approaching, the Israelites are terrified. God splits the sea, the Israelites escape genocide, and Pharaoh’s army is destroyed. Fast forward a couple of months and you get to Ch. 16. It says that, “In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.’”
This is what fear will do if we let it. It will make us forget the Seas that God has split in our lives whenever a crossroad or speedbump comes up, no matter how minor or major. Obviously, trekking on a mountain and getting caught in the rain is trivial compared to the severity of situations life throws at people. Yet, Jesus knows that this simple concept of trusting Him and remembering what He has done will not only save us in the most desperate of situations: financial collapse, heart ache, betrayal, death; but will make us push past the limits of the unknown and THRIVE!
Fear can: paralyze us, make us hide, make us run… It can make us want to stay in a crummy job or live in an unwelcoming place because at least familiarity breeds predictability, (leaving us with some false sense of control). I have heard it said about hard times, the past is in the past, don’t think about it. Yeah, true. But, if we don’t remember how faithful God has been in our pasts, how will we ever trust Him with our present or future? How will we ever chase our dreams or pursue more? We cannot let fear set the limits of our lives and claim our dreams. When things are unknown and scary, Jesus calls us to love Him, love people, and trust that He loves us way more. HE knows what we NEED, when WE think we know what we WANT.
Relying on our own strength when times get tough is an easy trap to fall into. I say trap, but really, it’s a deep pit stemming from issues of our hearts that are too scary, big, or unknown to deal with on our own. Pride, insecurity, hurt, un-forgiveness, impatience, etc., line the walls of the pit and intimidate us into submission. We need to engrave it on our hearts that our only help comes from the Lord (Psalm 121). The freedom to live a boundless life, whatever season you are in, lies on the other side of your fear- just hop out if the pit. The Lord is perfect, He lives and loves perfectly, drawing the image clearly for us of what it takes to combat fear. He is the perfect and loving Father that guides our steps and tells us who we truly are in relationship with Him.
Every day, we should be taking the knowledge we have acquired about the Lord and applying it to our lives. Today, let us ask the questions, what do we fear and how can I trust God more in those areas of my life? In moments of fear, when we feel like running, or giving up, or fighting with our own strength, what are we going to do to remind ourselves that God is faithful? You should check out Hebrews chapter 11; it gives us a run-down of many moments in the Bible where obedient faith intersects with Gods goodness, and true spiritual growth and freedom BLOSSOM from it. It is those moments we should CRAVE- moments that synch our bond closer to God and remind us that even in the face of the impossible, anything is possible with Jesus.
It’s funny to think about how confined we have made God over the years due to fear or worry, placing Him inside of some sort of “religion box” based upon rules and regulations. A routine if you will, that fits within societal norms, making it easier for us to squeeze God into our jam-packed day to day, instead of doing what ought to be done and scheduling our lives around Him to continually remember how good He is. Honestly, I’ve seen this type of one foot in, one foot out lukewarm pursuit of Christ, hinder what true trust and intimacy with the Lord looks like… even leaving a bad taste in the mouths of not only the pursuer but onlookers as well, pushing them further from the Lord. I know because I have been there.
It’s important for us to know that we can’t corral God into a lifestyle of mediocrity to make life more comfortable, especially when things get scary or hard. Just going to church once a week is not where God wants our relationship with Him to stall out. God is NOT boring and whoever thinks of Him as such needs to get out more… He is THE CREATOR of adventure and wants us to live audaciously and experience HIM. All it takes is a small leap of FAITH to take back the reigns of our minds, hearts and lives, becoming renewed in the Spirit; FEAR has controlled us for far too long. Fear of living, fear of loving, fear of this, fear of that, fear, fear, fear… yuck.
“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.” 1 Cor. 15:10
