I went for a drive & then a hike on Saturday and fell in love all over again. Truly, if a human can love land, I love Montana. However, I'd grown frustrated over the preceding couple weeks. Frustrated in practical circumstances; frustrated in spiritual surroundings. The first 3 months in Montana were certainly a honeymoon period. Things were new, fresh, exciting, and my perspective was full of hope for the future. I went back to Oregon for 3 weeks over the holidays to help an ailing grandparent & spend time with family and friends. I got to share all my fun stories and zest for life. Then I returned to Montana - without my Christ-centered girlfriends to whom I could bare my soul knowing that they would direct me back to Christ, without my family, and without all of the same routines I'd enjoyed in the first 3 months.
January ushered in multiple frustrations: financial stress, concern for the future, loneliness, and doubt. God had answered me time & again on so many things. Intimate moments with Him were exhilarating: He'd convicted me, comforted me, and refreshed me. Yet the spiritual intensity left me exhausted. While He had answered, and hearing His voice so clearly had reassured me, I desired a vacation from character growth. I'd spent a month trying to understand His ways, trying to find His reasoning, and questioning His methods. In a moment of frustration, I'd actually asked God to just write on my wall or make an animal speak because I clearly wasn't "getting it" and could really use a break from riddles. I'd also spent a month shrugging off a verse that kept trying to penetrate my mind: Isaiah 40:31.
I've discovered that being straightforward with God is the best policy for success, being as He already knows everything. So I headed to one of my favorite short trails where I go to seek Him. In the parking lot, I watched an old man prepare his gear for the hike. I walked by him, figuring I should get a good head start so that he wouldn't feel bad watching me disappear into the distance. The first section of the trail was covered in ice. I took a few tentative steps and was preparing to conquer the steepest icy section when, lo & behold, click click click behind me traipsed the little old man. Now, when I say "little old man," I quite literally mean small-framed & withered from at least 70 years on this planet. He was little, and he was old, and he blitzed by me. "It's sure icy!" he chuckled. "I brought my shoe claws but don't want to put them on yet!" And off he went. As I watched. While he disappeared into the distance. Little, old, and shaming me.
Head drooping, I figured I was already there and could use the calorie burn. I started climbing again, and immediately my feet slipped on the ice. I skidded a good 3-4 feet backward, instantly annoyed. It's bad enough being passed by a little old man, but to be incapable of traversing a 5 foot section of ice was ridiculous. I finally made it past that stretch, but my attitude quickly hit dire straits.
As I climbed, I pondered many things. For instance, stubbornness versus steadfastness. My mom always told me I was a stubborn child. She also always told me I was a compliant child. I believe what she meant is that externally I was very obedient, but my heart did not always coincide with my actions. I tended to fear disappointing my parents, and that fear shaped my outward behavior. Inside, however, I often held onto my perspectives. And in that moment on the trail, my perspective was that a little old man had already climbed 1/4 of a hill that I had barely begun. I dug in, stubbornly refusing to quit now. Who knew? Perhaps I could catch him and prove that I'm not utterly pathetic.
About halfway up the hill, I stopped & told God how tired I was. Spiritually, emotionally, mentally, I was simply exhausted. I expressed my fear that He doesn't have a plan for my life. I confessed that I am struggling with submission to Him - that I want to take the reins and show Him what needs to happen. And as I prayed, I watched the little old man prancing up the mountain, now mere feet from the top. No chance of catching him. No chance of proving youth's superior stamina. He smoked me.
From the corner of my eye, I spotted another motion, this time in the air. I looked up to the heavens and saw a bald eagle soaring - so beautiful, so alive, so free. No restraints held him back. Nothing constricted his flight. I laughed out loud, "That's so You, God." I had pushed aside the words of Isaiah 40:31 over & over, convincing myself that Isaiah had penned them for a situation completely different from my own and to apply them to my life was to pridefully elevate my life into an undeserved spiritual position. Well, if that eagle flying above me wasn't God's own hand writing the words of Isaiah on my heart, I don't know how much more blunt He could get.
And so I laughed out loud, enjoyed the moment with my Savior, and then returned focus to the hill. Something had changed, though. Not only was the path more difficult due to mud and steepness, but something inside me had changed. Whereas I'd slipped backwards on the ice in the beginning, I now leaned forward and dug my fingers into the earth, at times clawing my way forward on hands and feet. I steadfastly refused to lose ground, even if it meant bruising my knees or grinding mud into my fingernails to maintain my progress. I quit pausing to glance behind me. No more temptations to quit assaulted my mind. When I saw the tiny speck of the little old man bound across his last few feet of the ascent, I applauded his energy and passion for life.
God uses metaphors to encourage me quite often, and this experience was no different. The elderly gentleman had attired himself in winter gear, including walking sticks made for the purpose of scaling an icy mountain. He had packed "shoe clips" in case the walking sticks were not enough. He stuck to the narrow trail, aware that those before him had trod a reliable path. He didn't pause to look wistfully at the flat, easy parking lot below. He didn't slide backwards on icy patches. He didn't slip and fall on the muddy slopes. His experience had taught him how to approach obstacles, and his fervency carried him quickly up the hillside.
Conversely, I'd ventured out on my own, unprepared and relying on sheer will (stubbornness) to pull me through. I'd beheld the older man's preparedness with disdain. I slipped backwards in the beginning, and that failure rattled me. At times I didn't plan my steps ahead enough, resulting in an inability to discern the path due to mud and rocks. I bulldozed my own way, requiring more time & energy, until I relocated the path on which others had tread.
This attitude reflects our Christian walk oftentimes, I think. It's easy to compare ourselves with others in a negative sense - cataloging our appearances and progress. As young Christians especially, we can scorn the experience of elder generations, resulting in a loss of direction as we try to blaze our own trails. Even after years of following Christ, we can slip backwards into relying on emotional encounters or intellectual comprehension to pull us through the difficult times in life. Discouragement, frustration, and doubt tear our gaze from the path God sets before us. But as we grow in Christ, we become as the older man: dancing on hinds' feet on high places! We gird ourselves with truth, put on righteousness, shod our feet with peace, and take up the shield of faith. Just as the older man had grasped walking sticks to assist his climb, so also we should memorize and meditate on Scripture that we may be stabilized by the Holy Spirit's encouragement as we ascend over obstacles. We should give thanks for the examples of godly men & women before us, gleaning from their experiences.
The rest of my hike was joy-filled and included perching myself on a rocky outcrop to read Isaiah 40. Astounded, I read verses 27-31 and could only shake my head at myself. "Why do you say...'My way is hidden from the Lord...'?" These words echoed my heart's cry. Had I not expressed to God several times that my life felt insignificant, that I feared He had quit preparing a path for me to walk, that He was perhaps tired of hearing from me? I recall making a joke to my mom a couple weeks ago about having turned to my Bible so much lately that it was probably hiding from me under my bed!
But the Word of God says, "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth" [you can't get mightier than that!] "does not become weary or tired." Moreover, God "gives strength to the weary" and "increases power" to those who lack. Isaiah says that "youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly." Had I not just grown weary on the trail? Had I not stumbled badly - had I not slid backward on the ice?
Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines stubborn as "unreasonably or perversely unyielding; performed or carried on in an unyielding, obstinate, or persistent manner; difficult to handle, manage, or treat." Steadfast sounds similar, but it differs significantly. The dictionary defines it as "firmly fixed in place, not subject to change; firm in belief, determination, or adherence; loyal." In these definitions, we see that stubbornness consists either of foundationless immobility or movement without submission. Steadfast, then, is quite opposite: unmovable, but grounded upon a foundation.
My heart can be stubborn. Even though I may externally accord my behavior to God's word, this obedience sometimes merely disguises a heart that remains set upon its will. When I embarked upon the hike, I relied on my own abilities, largely rooted in stubbornness to not let the hill beat me. God corrected me and reminded me of a request that I've prayed for years now: that He would take what my fallen nature perverts into stubbornness and continually develop my personality, divinely designed by Him for a purpose, into a steadfast heart devotedly submitted to His glory.
I don't know God's specific plans for my life. I don't know how He will direct each step. But I do know that He promises, in more places than just Isaiah, that "those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary." God is good, and He does good. Experience teaches His children that He will allow us to feel pain as well as joy, frustration as well as ease, but He will always stand with us, providing fortitude amidst the trials and laughing with us on the mountaintops. I remain convinced that a heart steadfast for His purposes, a life submitted to His sovereignty, cannot fail to exceed every dream or hope imagined.
