Grand Canyon Contemplation
I recently had the opportunity to take my first ever overnight backpacking trip. While I’m an avid hiker and love the outdoors, I needed something to push my physical limits and immerse me in the beauty of nature. A friend referred me to Solid Rock Outdoor Ministries. There was one spot left on the Grand Canyon trip and while the descriotion felt physically daunting, I knew it was the right match. It was very healing for my soul and my body to completly disconnect from my phone, and hike from Rim to River with a group of 11 people who love Jesus. The following is my contemplation blog written from both the literal and allegorical perspective of my adventure addressed as a letter to God. Hope you enjoy it!
Grand Canyon Contemplation On the heights... I see Your vastness reaching out beyond miles… beyond what eyes can see. Layers upon layers upon layers of majestic sculpture ravish me. There is no end to wonder only more and more wonder. I am beckoned to explore the unknown terrain that will take me into only one small sliver of this massive canyon with you. In the lengths... I come to know that You are steadfast and patient in the persevering as I traverse the unfamiliar and challenging path step by step. In the exhausting heat of sun I push my body to carry the weight, like counting the cost, and keep I going on. Muscles burn and push out the soul pain they have stored. Lungs and heart work hard releasing me to feel so alive. In the exertion, My body heals through pain, my muscles, bones, joints, my ears, my eyes. In moments of the comfort of shade and a sip from a spring, cliff edges and high ledges, narrow and steep, rubble and rock, steady and onward, Your beauty propels me to reflect on the joy in your heart that endures. I must pause to not only catch my breath but let you take my breath away once again as I lift up my eyes to your face. I look up and out and all around so as not to forget the vastness I have found in the midst of the focus it takes to take each step in front of me. In the width... of the open sky, beyond canyon walls, I see a glimpse of the bigger story that you write beyond my understanding. The sun begins to set and signals the divine cadence that meets me in my fatigue. It’s time to slow pace and reflect… to stop … to drink, to let you wash the feet of this worn traveler, camp here by the peaceful stream in the care of a good shepherd. I rest as I wait for new mercies in the morning. You give to your beloved sleep in the open air of moonlit night. The stars remind me to breathe deep. “Yah -Weh”I open my eyes and the clouds testify like an angelic witness. God you are with us. The sun rise and bird song signals the time to arise and move forward, to keep pressing on. Until we find the depths we are not finished yet. A few more miles on the narrow road. The rhythmic crushing of dirt beneath my feet sets the pace for silent reflection …”who am I and to whom do I belong?” This day is filled with grace and awe as I meditate. We crest a small mound in the wide open, the river is in view. Deeper we descend. Down In the depths The perspective is different now. Down deep and hidden in the Canyon. I nestle in to the safety in the cleft of the rock and prepare to stay a while, fellowshipping and reflecting. I ground my bare feet in the finely crushed clay dirt and begin to feel your nearness in my smallness as you surround me with your greatness.From the massive rock to the grains between my toes I come to know the God of painstaking detail. The same God that sculpted majestic fortresses of rock formed me from dust. Clay in your hands, your breath in my lungs. And I am undone that you are the God who put the wings on eagles, birds, butterflies, dragonflies and tiny little lady bugs. In the smallest darkest unseen places you bring life. So it is in my soul, in my smallness and in the darkest untouched place you have come to make me new and make me whole. Down deeper still, The child within me comes alive as I splash and leap in the ice cold creek. I slide down miniature waterfalls, and move along the smooth rock halls, jumping and climbing leaping and smiling. I’m humming with delight as my hands glide across the cool, smooth gorge of rock like a paintbrush. I touch each colorful layer and feel the cool stone on my skin. I’m in natures playground. And the child like faith within is found. I arrive to the sound of the river and stand in awe with feet buried in sun warmed sand. I step into the icy cold, chill to the bone, that purges my body of its sorrow it has had to hold for too long. The sound of the nearby violent rushing rapids echos off the canyon walls capturing my gaze with its dancing waves. I stand in the pool on the edge of a river formed from a flood that formed a whole canyon. I immerse in a polar plunge style baptism. It’s a sign of new life. A river of mercy came out of a flood of judgment against the things that would separate me from you. There are waves of this moment that impact not only me but those with me. I emerge from the water and reflect on the promise of covenant love. The canyon speaks of what mercy has done. Something new is birthed. Let our vocal cords and lungs and shivering bodies, feet buried in mud sing of the goodness of God of the One who is worthy, the lamb has overcome. There’s perspective on the mountain tops and cleft of rocks In the valley low, in the twinkling springs, small cascades and birds that sing. In layers formed in canyon walls and vast expanse of moon and stars In desert blooms and rising moons In gusting winds and rushing rivers There’s a story of your judgment and deliverance, of your goodness and redemption and of beauty fashioned through ages of enduring love. And oh how vast are the riches of the knowledge of God. Have I really seen the living one who sees me? Have I really known the love that knows me? Have I really heard the one who hears, the one who speaks? In the highest peaks In the smallest living thing? In the witness of shrubs, and cactus and tree whose roots have dug deep in desert places in order to bloom? Have I really known The God of so great a love and mercy? Have I really known you? Have I really searched the heights and depths and lengths and widths of your love? I just can’t get enough. I want to know you forever. It was hard but it was worth it. I’d do it all over again if it meant I got to To find more of you in the Canyon, in its height and lengths and widths and depths. In the Ascent I can’t stay in the depths I must once again ascend the long narrow path. There is fellowship with you as I testify of how you have been and are now with me. I silent hike and I sing and hike. I feel so alive. By the testimony of your faithfulness I champion my body to overcome the grueling ascent as I champion my fellow traveler to move through the pain of body and sorrow of heart. There's an unexpected gift on the trail, a meaningful conversation that somehow makes the challenge of the ascent dissipate. The hardest parts of my story on the harder part of the climb releases me and champions my fellow hiker that He who began a good work is faithful. The last two miles is quiet, hot and steady and slow. I ascend the steep inlcine of cathedral stairs. I vocalize the exertion of right and left, switchback to switchback my lungs and heart helping to burn out some of the remnants of anger and pain in my story. We are nearing the top but it’s the hardest part. I set my mind to consider the Jerusalem like stone beneath my feet and the cross that you bore up a path much more steep. I came into the canyon one way and will emerge forever changed … stronger yet weaker, bolder yet more humble… my heart like a wildflower blooming something has happened down deep inside … my life will testify“Do not earnestly cling to the former things that have passed, behold rivers in the desert and springs in the wilderness, it’s a new season.” From Rim to River and back again, I cross the summit. I am grateful and certainly more compassionate toward other travelers. But only by climbing through it step by step by step my yes by yes until I reach the top. And when I arrive at the trail head I drop my sticks and pack as a sign of dropping weight. I came alive in the heights, filled with grace in the widths, surrendered and purged in the depths and ascent. Down at the bottom I relinquished my grip on things held too tightly. Now at the top my hands are free and my body relieved. I have Your hand in mine. It was his Your hand who helped me make the climb. I lift my hands in victory and release an accomplished shout as I cross the precipice of the rim. I look out across the vastness once again and proclaim: “Oh the height the length the width the depth of the love and the knowledge of God”.
Abundant Life on the Narrow Road
An abundant life…
Is not a permissive life in which we do as we please without any parameters, consequence or repercussion.
An abundant life is rather a rich life that embraces the restraint of submission to Gods ways rather than my own as a necessary means to the deepest experience of joy… even in the midst of the sufferings of this present age.
An abundant life is not found on a broad path of evolved pop culture. It doesn’t let us go wherever we want, when we want, how we want. We don’t get to take and benge on whatever we want. In an abundant life, we consider the good of others, not just ourselves.
Abundant life is discovered on a narrow, difficult, path with the a confident assurance that the trek will lead us into glory. The narrow road will eventually become the streets of gold beneath our feet. It leads us home where we belong, where we were meant to be.
An abundant life doesn’t deny the pain that it takes to travel it ,nor does it count the times we got lost or stumbled off course as irredeemable.
The abundant life lives in the present moment fully alive without neglecting to remember the past with a real work of processing it. It doesn’t live in a denial of pain but rather moves through it in a sort of way of metabolizing it: turning it and letting it rest, turning it and letting it rest … composting it into the rich nutrients of the soil in which we now are growing.
An abundant life is fully present in the now while experiencing the redemption of the past and ever expectant of the promise to come.
On this road, we do not get to do as we please … but it does mean we get to take pleasure in what we do… and even more so in being. We get to take pleasure in being with God. We get to delight in God. There is life as we yield to the safety of Gods best path for us. In this we can find rest in who we are in His eyes with a peaceful sense of ever coming into all that He meant for us to become.
The enemy comes to steal kill and destroy. He offers us a broad road. As convincing as it may seem to us to be a more enjoyable or easy route … this path leads to destruction. But God has come to give life and life abundantly … on the narrow road with restrictions and limitations that are for our good. And also with a great degree of freedoms that are for our joy as well.
Seduction wants us to cross the good and pleasant boundaries that had been divinely set. Don’t let this decieve you into thinking there will be no suffering.
In the guise of a lie .. a false “abundant life” that gives permission to be and do and take whatever and move wherever we want in order to avoid pain. Sounds like the voice in the garden … “did god really say “… “but you will not surely die will you” … no “he’s withholding from you”
But an abundant life … “you may eat from ALL the trees of the Garden” only “avoid this one.. it will kill you.”
The enemy tempts us with the one tree… one out of how many hundreds or thousands or more. The Garden was not a boring place. Adam and eve were enticed away from the abundance of fellowship with God in a whole world of beauty. They were allured away to partake of what would destroy their destiny. Seduction seeks to turn our focus on the one we should not have: perhaps as a false medicine to escape from pain, a short route to success, a false sense of worth, meeting our needs outside of god’s provision.. the list goes on.
But there’s a whole orchard available to us. A vast realm of seeking to know God as we are known by him.
We get to partake of His divine nature (2 Peter 1:4)
We get to sit under the shade of HIS tree and delight in its fruit. (Song of Solomon 2:3)
We get to rest under the shadow of His wings. (Psalm 91)
We get to search out the very mind of Christ. (1 Cor. 2:16)
We get to spend a lifetime and eternity experiencing the height, length, width and depth of His love. (Eph. 3:18)
The depths of the riches of the knowledge of God are inexhaustible. (Rom. 11:33)
The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy. (Rom. 14:17)
If it’s not His kingdom it will not be abundant life. If His presence isn’t in it, I don’t want it. I won’t avoid suffering in this life. I’ve experienced the suffering that comes from eating from the trees on the broad road. And I’ve experienced the peace that comes amidst suffering from being yoked to the will of God. I’d rather suffer for being knit to the heart of God than bound by the ways of this world. (1 Peter 3:17)
I’ll take the narrow road of beholding and becoming. I’ll keep choosing life and life abundantly. In my heart is a highway to zion and blessed are those whose strength is in the Lord. (Psalm 84)