Mongolia was a huge month for people who love nature and worship the Lord through their appreciation of His creation. The land was beautiful, and it had a sky to match. For many people, there was nothing like going out and looking at the mountains, rivers, and valleys, or the sun, moon, and stars to bring their souls peace and assurance.
Well, I’m not one of those people. Nature is not really one of those things that usually makes me feel close to God. For some reason, going out and actually being in nature makes me agitated. In Mongolia, there were bugs everywhere – buzzing pests and parasites. That’s something you never see in all the pretty pictures. You look at that nice green, flowery landscape composed by all the pretty pixels and think, “How nice it would be to lay down on the grass by that river”. Until you actually do it, and get eaten alive by mosquitoes.
But it’s okay, you give the idea another shot. So you actually do it again; this time not by the mosquito breeding ground. You give nature another chance and instead you now have a hundred flies land on all exposed body parts (and you know what flies do when they land on anything), and an army of ants crawling up non-exposed body parts. Peaceful, right? I couldn’t even get past sitting there, let alone laying down.
Then there was the scorching sun, and the unexpected arrival of thunderstorms that brought pouring rain, both of which made the “sit outside on the grass” fantasy, a reality of sunburn and cold feet. And then there was the poop, which is something else you don’t see in the pictures – cow poop, sheep poop, horse poop, dog poop, and etc. Even human poop. I don’t think I will ever forget going back to my tent in the morning and seeing the pastor’s toddler pooping right at the entrance to my tent. If I wanted to get in, there was no going around it. Everyone had to always watch where they stepped and where they sat down. Looking at the ground all the time left very little time to look around and look up.
I received spiritual insight through nature all right, just not for the most part through the peace that it brought me about God’s majesty. All of that frustration with “real nature” and not the postcard Google image stuff served to confirm that the reality has been often contrary to my expectations for the World Race, or even my walk with the Lord before I actually got into it. But through all the bugs, sun, rain, and poop, would I still rather have the picture? Absolutely not. At the end of the day, there were moments when the wind came down and the bugs stopped buzzing, where the sun was at the perfect place in the sky with the right amount of clouds, where the rain was yet to come, and where the poop…well, the poop is always there. But there were times when you couldn’t smell it, and you did remember that eventually it all became a part of the ground from which hope springs and beauty blossoms. And in those perfect moments, the reality was better than the most beautiful picture.
It is better to have a real experience, even if it’s messy, than a perfect one. And maybe that’s why God chose to create us anyway, knowing full well that the reality of creating the heavens and the earth would be a messy one. Messy for us, and most especially for Him; having to come down, take on flesh, and die. The cross was messy. But messy didn’t stop Him as He spoke it all into existence. He could have had the most beautiful picture of perfection in His head forever, without all the bugs, sun, rain, and poop. Yet He wanted to make it real, because even if it would be real messy, at least it would be real; a real relationship between a Creator and His creation. Because God deemed this better, so do I as I decide daily to walk in His footsteps and live for that real, messy pursuit of souls. And every day, I never cease to be amazed by this statement that began all of this:
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1
