Go Take A Hike

Spiritually-speaking, I think it’s time I take a hike.

Sure, my leg muscles and lungs could use the exercise. But my soul and spirit need a walk in the woods even more.

I can’t help but trip over what God said about His creating this amazing world for our delight. To wow us. As author Donald Miller says, “to dazzle us.”

For years I thought my husband’s addiction-like affection for his canoe trips to the Canadian wilderness related to his pioneer spirit and his preference for fish-scented air freshener. But many of his most intimate moments with the Lord can be traced to those times in the wilderness.

(I have a fiction project--about disaster set in that wilderness--just waiting for a publisher to snatch it up!)

This is the truth that is calling me to take a hike or sit by a lake or walk through the Foxfire Gardens or climb high into the branches of a tree today (not that THAT’S going to happen): Nature’s setting often makes it easier for God to get through to us.

There is a strength for living that we are missing out on if we don’t learn to embrace the quiet that allows God’s thoughts entrance.

“In quietness and confidence shall be your strength,” reads Isaiah 30:15. It is a truth that meets a great deal of resistance in current society.

Quiet goes against the grain of modern living. It does not, however, go against the grain of nature.

The unnatural things—schedules, day planners, cell phones, beepers, computers—are man-made, remind us of man-made responsibilities, and make us accountable to humans.

Creation, on the other hand, reminds us of God-created things, God-created responsibilities, and makes us accountable to God.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Cynthia
www.heartbeatofthehome.org