When I started hiking this morning,
I had no intention of battling spider webs, picking spiders out of my hair, or nearly
stepping on six box turtles. I hadn’t
planned on staring at my tennis shoes more than at the panoramic scenery, lest
I slide down a steep slope or step on the slower traffic. My purpose for stuffing my Bible, journal,
lunch, and pillow into my backpack was to find a place of serene beauty and have
intimacy with Jesus.
It wasn’t wrong for me to knock
down webs and pluck the loathsome creatures from my hair. It had to be done, but that wasn’t the purpose
of my journey. Can you imagine me
telling someone about my hike? “It was
amazing. I knocked down fifteen spider
webs, flicked two spiders out of my hair, carefully balanced on loose rocks as
I walked down steep slopes, and narrowly avoided squishing six turtles.” With the possible exception of the turtles,
this is not really what people want to hear.
They want to know how God’s presence seemed more real when I was
surrounded by the fragrance of pine needles.
They want to know the stillness and rest I found while sleeping on the
trail with my pillow. They want to know
the thoughts God shared with me as I spent three hours alone with Him in the
woods. What I did was
inconsequential. They want to know what
God did.
Why, then, do I make this blunder
on my daily journey? I hike through each
day with the grand hope of beautiful intimacy and fellowship with Christ, but that
is not how I measure my hike at the end of each day. As I crawl into bed at night, I soothe myself
with thoughts like: “I read three
chapters today, wrote a blog post, read to my kids, cleaned the house, and even
had some ladies over for tea.” This is
not what people want to know about my daily hike. They want to know how God changed my heart
while listening to my preschooler pray, how God proved Himself faithful (once
again) when I had no hope. They want to
know how I have seen God answer my prayers, save the souls of my family and
friends, and make me more like Christ.
They don’t want to know what I did.
They want to know what God did.
They want to share my experience of God with me.
Task-oriented instead of
God-oriented. This is a lie that forges
chains of performance-based approval.
This lie says, “In order to BE something, I must DO something.” So we stay up late and get up early. We schedule every hour of the day. We read books on how to live more
efficiently. We work until we have nothing left to give. Meanwhile, God is redeeming souls, healing
wounds, setting captives free, giving sight to the blind, and we don’t even see
it, because we’re so focused on what we’re
doing.
As long as you keep moving on your
hike, you have to keep swatting at the spider webs and watching your own
feet. So drop your backpack, lie down on
the trail, and watch what God is doing.
I promise you that the view will be better than your own hiking boots.
Scripture to Study:
Numbers
23:23b It will now be said of Jacob
and of Israel, ‘See what God has done!’
(Replace
Jacob and Israel with your own name: It
will now be said of ____________ ‘See what God has done!’)
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