We slide our bare feet into chilling mountain water and begin to glide across the slippery stone floor of the stream, wading through tiny rapids with no real purpose other than enjoying the beauty of this place and each other’s company. Laughter bounces off the trees as lines from Pocahontas’, Just around the River Bend, are sung with great enthusiasm and terrible British accents. The height of the pines cast a cooling shade over the stream, the oak leaves filter the sunlight just enough to still welcome its warmth. Little pockets of afternoon light dance on the water’s surface as we splash along with its rushing rhythm.
The three of us continue to meander downstream noticing stacks of stone towers visitors before us have placed along the banks. Looking over my shoulder cautiously while attempting to keep my footing, I say, “Hey, we should stack some stones!” Chelsie looks back at me with a smile, arms outstretched for balance, “Like an altar,” she says.
A sentimental grin overtakes my face, “Yes! Just like an Altar!”
There’s a story in the book of Genesis about a man named Abram. Where we enter the story, God has just called Abram to leave his home, his country, and everything that is familiar to him. Abram is given a promise from God that if he is willing to follow, God will bless him greatly, bringing Abram and his family into a new land to start a new, incredible story. The journey to this new land is a long and hard one full of unknowns. It’s a journey that requires an unimaginable amount of trust and courage on the part of Abram, to believe that God can be found faithful to fulfill His promises.
“Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.’ So Abram built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on…” (Gen. 12:7-9)
As Abram walks this unknown journey with God he takes time to stop and build altars – to create intentional meeting places with God. Building an altar was a way of saying, “God, I want to encounter you here.” The altar was a place to recognize and experience God’s presence.
Abram constructs his altars during the journey. He doesn’t wait until he has reached the final destination, he doesn’t wait until he’s made it to God’s promised land to stop and remember all that God has already done for him. He doesn’t wait to give thanks. With trust, Abram stops in the middle of his journey to meet with God. He thanks God for how far He has already brought him, and for the promises yet to come.
Chelsie spotted three rocks nestled into the dirt along the stream’s edge. Pulling them from the mud she hands one to each of us. Together, we wade into the center of the stream and place them one on top of the other, the base of our altar a stone worn smooth by hundreds of years of liquid in motion.
Taking each other’s hands we circle our little altar of ordinary rocks and meet with God in the middle of a mountain stream. We thank Him for how far He has brought the three of us. We thank Him for giving us each other, for weaving our stories together so intricately these last five years. We pause for just a moment, to remember that this same God who has been faithful to bring us this far will continue to go before us to the unknown places ahead. That’s just who He is and what He does. It always has been, and it always will be.
