I was frustrated, annoyed, broken, and feeling helpless… so, I took off on hike to clear my head. I told myself, “I’ll get out deep in nature away from everything,” but that proved to be much harder than I anticipated. First, I had to pick the trail. From our cabin, there were two directions I could go in (1) take the local, wide trail used by bikers on property, or (2) travel a section of the Appalachian Trail that is narrow, rocky, and pretty much goes straight up a mountain. Since I’m a total Type-A “Finisher,” taking the Appalachian Trail seemed like a bad call, seeing as how I could not finish the trail and and would always want to keep going. So, I opted for the easier trail, but I heard so many voices in that direction and was reminded that I wanted to get away from noise. Sigh. Guess, I’ll have to go the hard way. So, I set off on a section of the Appalachian Trail wondering how far I would end up going.
“I’ll just go a mile in and find a place to sit down and write,” I told myself. Just calm down and enjoy nature. But, I couldn’t. The frustrations continued as I climbed, while I could hear the birds and the rush of the white water flowing down the Nantahala River, I could also still hear the cars driving along the highway; which appeared to run parallel to the trail. “Am I really going to have to listen to trucks driving by the entire way?!? Can’t I just get away!” I was tired, still frustrated, and growing ever more impatient with my path. It’s so narrow and one side drops straight down. Large rocks and tree roots are scattered about the pathway, so I have to pay attention to where I walk. I keep pressing on. No big deal. I’ll just keep going until it clears out and there is a big rock to sit on to relax. I kept climbing. Finally, I hit a curve in the path that revealed a big rock cropping, and thought, “this is perfect” while setting my bag down and taking a seat to rest and drink some water. I could see and hear the rush of the water… what a beautiful place. Then, I heard a large truck going by. Great. Looking out past the water, oh yeah there it is, the highway still following me. “Leave me alone! I just want to get away from the noise and pressure of civilization!” So I grabbed my stuff and kept going. Haven’t really hit a mile yet anyway, I can keep going and still make my way back. Surely, I can hit a quiet space before getting in too deep. So, I kept climbing. For a while the path seems to just continue to wind around the mountain, with little opportunity for openings… what if there aren’t any more rocks? What if I keep going and going and never find a better place? Maybe I should go back? Maybe I should have taken the other trail after all. Or just stayed back in the cabin and sat outside on the porch? God, what am I doing?
That’s about the time I started to notice the analogy that God was using my trip to teach me a lesson about life. He says “Narrow is the path and few find it”… this path is surely narrow, and I haven’t see a soul since I started out on it. Oh my gosh, what if I get bit by and snake and die out here because I set out on the trail alone?! What if I take a turn somewhere and can’t remember how to get back? God seemed to say to me “Relax, just trust me. Keep going.” Ugh. So, I climbed on. But my mind continued to wander. I finally found another rock. This time it protruded from the path. Just big enough for me to sit on, and be out of the way if someone happens to come by, which didn’t seem likely at this point. All those passing through probably left much earlier in the day and where way ahead of me. I looked down at my FitBit, and realized I’ve been about my mile now… also the climb was even steeper than I thought, since it calculated I had climbed the equivalent of 42 flights of stairs! Gee Whiz. “This is good,” I told myself. I can make this work, I mean, it’s kind of small and all… but I better stay here.
Then I heard the highway. Come on man! “Just rest. And don’t worry about what lies ahead,” He prompted. I used the Relax feature on my FitBit, to control and slow my breathing. For the first time, someone walked by… going in the opposite direction. I thought about stopping him and asking him about everything he’d seen, how far until it opens up, is there an nice area that I can go to sit and write? But I was reminded of another way my trip was like life… we can’t do that. Each of us has our own purpose and unique perspective and we can’t base our future on other’s past experiences. He looked like a serious Appalachian Trail hiker, probably gone many miles… he wasn’t looking for quiet alcoves God-made for writers. Had I asked, it probably would have just discouraged me further–there probably were several that he never saw, because that’s not what he was looking for, not his goal. This is my journey, and I’ve got my own guide. I just don’t trust Him all that much because He wont let me see the freakin’ map! Why can’t I just see the whole plan so I can KNOW.
Time to press on. “But how much further?” And all those questions flood back into my mind, and “What ifs”… But, I keep going. I start to build myself up with encouragement, hey, it looks like we’re finally turning away from the highway. I can hear more birds, feel more sunshine. This is great. I thought about life and complacency. The way we get somewhere and decided to stay with what we know instead of traveling further because we’d rather settle for what we know than to travel ahead into the unknown. Those first two places I stopped where nice, but not what God had in store for me. I passed another rock and then another and thought each time, “Well, I could stop here, but what if there is something better?” and kept on going. Now my confidence is growing, I’m trusting, I’m knowing. Something great is waiting for me, I just have to keep going. Then nothing. Passing more logs than rocks now. Oh great, I slip back into the sea of doubt, “I should have stopped back there.” I’ve made a mistake. Where are you taking me? I’m tired and thirsty. I only planned to travel a little ways. I only took a single bottle of water, which is more than half gone now… FitBit stair count has risen to almost 60. Dang, that’s a lot of stairs. I was too confident, now I’ve missed something… I can’t keep going, this trail goes on for a very long time. “Just trust me. You have everything you need for what you are going to do.”
Then I see it.
A perfect little spot, away from everything. And a rock formation that looks like a bench. Surrounded by trees and nature. Far enough away from the road, that I no longer hear a constant flow of cars, but only hear an occasional plane or train (and I love trains, so that’s cool with me). Can you imagine if I had stopped earlier? I never would have made it here. I could have made due with something else, but this, this is ideal. This is what I needed. This is what I really wanted. OK, it would have been even better if I was looking out at a beautiful waterfall, but I don’t even know if that is a possibility along this trail (at least as much as I can travel right now)… but maybe it’s just not the right time…
After I sat down to write, I started having hikers passing by one after another. And I realized a few other things.. (1) Most people are traveling alone (2) they have a lot more provisions than me (3) everyone has a different goal.
Our walk with God is very similar to hiking the Appalachian Trail. Those sounds of civilization are like the worldly influences we face in life. Once we are enraptured with God’s love, we think we’ve outrun the world, but it keeps following us, and occasionally catching up. We have to just keep pressing on. Our lives come with peaks and valleys. The hardest climb is to the peaks, but it comes with the greatest reward. So keep on climbing, and don’t be afraid to trust your guide.