PRAYER ON A RAINY DAY

(6/17/09)
(Site B53, Linville Falls Campground, Blue Ridge Parkway)

Hi God. It is evening, and I am sitting here under the canopy beside my tent, listening to the rain patter on the tarp overhead. Rain has been my almost constant companion over the last few days. It rained HARD right after I set up camp last week. It has rained every day for the last four days (some days more than others). Today, it has been almost constant – it stopped for a while around midday, but other than that, it has really poured today. I cooked dinner at my campsite in the rain tonight (and couldn’t cook breakfast at all this morning – I just gave up and went to Hardee’s!). On Dugger’s Creek Trail today, I read a placard with a quote from John Muir (more on that later) in which he talks about – you guessed it – RAIN. And finally, I’ve been listening to one of my favorite artists, Patty Griffin, as I drove around today, and the first song that played on my iPod (not kidding) was entitled – wait for it – “RAIN”!

I must say, however, that I don’t really mind the rain that much. As an elderly man that I passed today on a Linville Falls trail reminded me, “A rainy day in the mountains is better than a sunny day in the city!” Amen! I remember how dry it had been up here for the last year or two during the drought. Many streams had been reduced to trickles, or had dried up completely. I also remember the small (thankfully) forest fires that were breaking out here last year due to the dry conditions. It has been so good to travel around over the past few days and see water everywhere – tricking from tiny brooks that had long-since dried up, gurgling and laughing as it danced over rocks in countless mountain streams, and dripping from moss-covered rock ledges that lined the sides of walking trails and roadways. One downside: unfortunately there have been a few more bugs to deal with, but that’s a small price to pay for the return of ample water here in the mountains!

Now back to the quote from John Muir, the great American conservationist. Here is the quote in its entirety:

“Every rain cloud, however fleeting, leaves its mark, not only on trees and flowers, whose pulses are quickened, and on the replenished streams and lakes, but also on the rocks are its marks engraved whether we can see them or not…”

Rain is essential to life on our planet. Without it, Earth becomes another Mars – dry, barren, and lifeless. Rain indeed leaves its mark here, from replenishing Earth’s vegetation to powering streams, waterfalls and rivers that wear down the very rocks that form their boundaries and give them their personalities. (Like the Linville River today after all the rain – the low-pitched roar of the falls was awe-inspiring, and more than a little bit scary! After witnessing its power, I can envision how water can change rocks over time.)

And who sends the rain? You do, God! Rain was Your idea. As my pastor, David Henderson, says, “all of this was Your idea”. The Earth is Your garden. Psalm 65 says:

9 You take care of the earth and water it, making it rich and fertile. The river of God has plenty of water; it provides a beautiful harvest of grain. 10 You drench the plowed ground with rain, melting the clods and leveling the ridges. You soften the earth with showers and bless its abundant crops.

Psalm 104 adds this imagery:

12 The birds nest beside the streams and sing among the branches of the trees. 13 You send rain on the mountains from your heavenly home, and you fill the earth with the fruit of your labor.

Psalm 147 says this about You, God:

8 He covers the heavens with clouds, provides rain for the earth, and makes the grass grow in mountain pastures.

As I walk down the hiking trails up here and hear the birds singing and the drips as the wind shakes loose large droplets of water from the leaves overhead, I can’t help but think that You must enjoy walking through the woods up here, too. I imagine this must be one of Your favorite places here on earth!

So what about the drought over the last two years – or the floods and wind damage that occurred here when the hurricanes blew through in the fall of 2004? Were You sleeping or away on vacation? Psalm 135 says:

6 The Lord does whatever pleases him throughout all heaven and earth, and on the seas and in their depths. 7 He causes the clouds to rise over the whole earth. He sends the lightning with the rain and releases the wind from its storehouses.

Well, OK then. In other words, this is Your earth, and You can do with it what You please. As Francis Chan says:

As much as we want God to explain Himself to us, His creation, we are in no place to demand that He give an account to us… to put it bluntly, when you get your own universe, you can make your own standards. (1)

So I really can’t grumble about the rain up here this week. None of us really has a right to complain when rain washes out one of our “little events” here on Earth. Rain is just your irrigation system turning on – much like TV’s hilarious “Funniest Home Videos” that feature people getting caught on a lawn or playing field when the sprinklers come on! (I’ll try to remember that next time one of my events gets rained out!) You may choose to part the clouds and spare an event, but You may not. It doesn’t have anything to do with our faith or lack thereof, or Your sanctioning or disapproval of our event (even if it’s for a great cause), or of Your care for us or Your nonchalance toward us. I think we are trying to read too much into it – it’s just Your sprinklers kicking on!

And so, let me just say that it has been so much fun playing in your sprinklers here in your garden over the past few days, God. Thank You for sharing Your garden with us. Thank you for sharing Your rain with us. Thank You also for raining down Your love on us even more abundantly. You are an awesome God!

ENDNOTES:

1. Francis Chan, Crazy Love (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2008), 33-34.

ENCOUNTER AT BEACON HEIGHTS

(6/18/09)
(Site B53, Linville Falls Campground, Blue Ridge Parkway)

Here I am at the end of a long, but awesome, day. I hiked a new trail today – Green Knob Trail near Julian Price Park. And I also hiked an old favorite, Beacon Heights Trail near Grandfather Mountain. During that particular hike, I had a very unique experience.

When I arrived at Beacon Heights, the rainstorm that had begun as I was completing my Green Knob hike was still going strong, with sheets of rain and strong gusts of wind. I parked the car at the trailhead and decided to wait it out and see if the storm would pass so that I could hike up to Beacon Heights. While I watched the storm pass, I finished Francis Chan’s “Crazy Love”. After the rain and wind subsided, I rolled my windows down a little as I finished up the last few pages of the book.

As I was reading, I began to hear a whining, whistling sound, haunting and almost melodic, as if multiple “notes” were sounding at once. I recognized it as the wind whistling through something, but couldn’t figure out what it was. I left my car to see if I could satisfy my curiosity. To my surprise, I discovered that the sound seemed to be coming from the summit of Grandfather Mountain. Then I realized what it was. The wind was blowing quickly over the summit of Grandfather, and the “singing” sound was the wind whistling through the Mile-High Swinging Bridge up at the top of the mountain! It was an astonishing experience!

With the bad weather now cleared, I then hit the trailhead and hiked up to Beacon Heights. As I was on my way up the trail, it hit me. The Mile-High Swinging Bridge was designed and built by men. And then today, God brought the wind and created something extraordinarily beautiful. As I reached the outcropping at the top, I realized that God works that way sometimes. We, the Creator’s creations – made in His likeness – use the capable, smart brains that He gave us to dream up creative ideas – anything from building structures to composing songs to writing prose to making scientific discoveries. And then God adds what only He can to create something truly astonishing and noteworthy. He adds the intangible, the supernatural, the God-sized part of the equation (like the strong wind blowing through the bridge), and makes art. It is my belief that this synergy doesn’t always occur – sometimes our ideas are left to survive or fizzle based on their own merit, without God’s direct intervention. But in those “God-moments”, we can really sense Him moving and working, as His Spirit “blows” through us.

Walking across the rock outcropping at the top of Beacon Heights, I noticed a chuck of rock that protruded upward like a table, with a hollowed-out area at the top in which water had pooled in several places. There was another piece of rock right next to it, at about knee-height. I thought to myself how this looked like a natural “altar” and “font” (like those found in some liturgical Christian churches).

Feeling the urge to do so, I dipped my finger in the “font” and crossed myself, then knelt at the “altar” and prayed for a few moments. It was a very special time of dedication to God and recommitment for the days and weeks to come.

Thanks, God, for such an inspiring way to end my time up here with You! It has been an amazing time that started out confusing but ended with an incredible encounter with You. I love You God, and I look forward to seeing You add Your wind (Your Spirit) to my ideas and creativity. Blow through me, O God, and create Your art in me. Take me and use me, O God. I am Your servant.

RISK

(8/13/09)
(At Home)

Hi God. It is great to be able to sit down and spend a few quality moments with you. It feels so good to just stop and breathe (and I don’t just mean physically).

As I was finishing up Francis Chan’s book, “Crazy Love”, one passage seemed to sum me up perfectly:

I wrote this book because much of our talk doesn’t match our lives. We say things like, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” and “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.” Then we live and plan like we don’t believe God even exists. We try to set our lives up so everything will be fine even if God doesn’t come through. But true faith means holding nothing back. It means putting every hope in God’s fidelity to His promises. (1)

As part of the refrain of Nickel Creek’s poignant song “Doubting Thomas” says, “Oh me of little faith”. This “faith-flaw” has followed me and characterized me for years. I give money only when I can get all the numbers to add up right. I carefully calculate my commitments to You so that I don’t have to risk “my” dreams or “my” plans in the process. I feel like I don’t really take many risks at all, even though my church’s slogan is “Love loud… risk often”. And though I have made progress in this area, more often then not, I tend to play it safe.

On the surface, playing it safe has its advantages. You can keep everything in your life a lot “tidier” – no messy relationships with questionable people who make questionable choices… no uncertainty or stress over how you’re gonna get the bills paid after showing generosity to someone… no worries about the future and what it will look like (all of that has already been mapped out in advance and planned to the nth degree). However, playing it safe also has its price – because playing it safe, God, leaves You no room to work. How can You possibly show us Your power if we never risk anything? RISK INVITES GOD TO SHOW US HIS POWER. Risk (for God’s gain, not our own) is the ultimate act of faith. When we risk, we invite God into the process – we actually dare God to show up.

I am reminded here of stories of spiritual giants from the Bible, like Moses lifting his staff to part the Red Sea (Exodus 14); like Elijah soaking the offering on the altar with water, and then asking God to consume it with fire during his “showdown” with the priests of Baal (I Kings 18); like Daniel boldly standing for God, even though he knew he was risking a “death sentence” in a den of lions (Daniel 6); like Peter stepping out onto the water to walk toward Jesus (Matthew 14); and like Peter healing Aeneas and raising Dorcas from the dead (Acts 9). When we risk to the point that we will look like complete idiots if You don’t show up, then and only then are we really operating in the realm of faith.

When we trust in our own abilities, imaginations, skills, and powers, we limit our outcome to merely what man can do. But when we take a risk – something that may look absolutely foolish to the world around us – we open up the possibility of a God-sized outcome. When we operate in the realm of faith – when we risk for Your Kingdom’s sake – we see what You are capable of. And You are capable of more than our wildest dreams.

And so, I frequently find myself in the same faith-posture as the father of the demon-possessed boy that Jesus encountered, as recorded in Mark 9:

21 “How long has this been happening?” Jesus asked the boy’s father.
He replied, “Since he was a little boy… 22 Have mercy on him and help us, if you can.”
23 “What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.”
24 The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my disbelief.”

God, I believe that You can do amazing things when we walk in amazing faith. I believe that Your actions are sometimes limited by our lack of vision. I believe that I could see more God-sized things accomplished if I took more risks for Your Kingdom’s sake. So if I believe these things, then what’s the hold-up? It is the other side of me – my unbelief. Unbelief drives me to play it safe, to carefully measure out my “risks”, to hide behind my plans and schemes.

I think that Jesus’ actions after that father’s confession of belief/unbelief are interesting. He refrains from giving the father a stern verbal rebuke for his lack of faith (one is not recorded here, at least). Jesus also refrains from refusing to help the boy – on the contrary, He heals him immediately. He shows grace, mercy, and compassion to the father and his troubled son. And since I suffer from the same dichotomy of faith as this father did, it is good to know, God, that You operate with grace, mercy, and compassion, even as we struggle to find faith.

And so, God, help me to be a man of strong faith, a man of outrageous courage, and a man of bold action. Help me to take big risks for Your Kingdom, so I can see what big things You can accomplish through a life totally yielded to You. Show me Your power, O God.

I believe… help me overcome my disbelief.


ENDNOTES:

1. Francis Chan, Crazy Love (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2008),168.

WORTHY OF OUR PRAISE

(4/16/09)
(Fern Forest Lot #6, Linville Falls, NC)

Hi God! A very exciting “first” for me today – I am sitting underneath a grove of laurels in a camp chair… on “my” property!! (Well, actually, Your property!) It still hasn’t completely sunk in yet. God, your goodness and grace just astound me. There’s no way this could have happened without Your intervention. This is the first miracle to happen in this journey… and I’m certain it won’t be the last.

I’ve been reading a little book by Donald Miller called "Jazz Notes", which is actually (unbeknownst to me when I bought it) a collection of mostly excerpts from his book "Blue Like Jazz" – a favorite of mine – plus a little bit of new writings intermingled with the excerpts. A couple of passages have resounded in my soul, and I’d like to give my “take” on them.

It comforts me to think that if we are created beings, the thing that created us would have to be much greater then we are, greater than our under-standing. If we could understand everything about God, would we be in awe of Him? Would we consider Him worthy of our worship?

When we worship God, we show our adoration and praise to a Being our minds and life experiences don’t give us all the tools to understand. For example, God is eternal. Eternity is something the human mind can’t grasp. (1)

I think that this sheds new light on the phrase that shows up in so many worship songs – “worthy of (my/our) praise”.

There was a time when I used to sing this phrase without really examining its true meaning. I have since come to realize that this proclamation to God is an acknowledgement that many things that we worship aren’t truly “worthy of our praise”, especially when compared to God.

We middle-class Americans praise many things, from our favorite soda to our favorite football team to our favorite pizza toppings. We even go so far as to declare these things (and many others, in today’s vernacular) to be “awesome”, which literally translates as “awe-inspiring”. (I say it pretty often, myself!) Now don’t get me wrong – I’ve had some pretty great pizzas in my day, but I’m not sure I was exactly “awed” by them. And none of them (even the ones with double cheese) have evoked an emotion that even comes close to the way I feel about You, God! You, and You alone, are truly worthy of my praise. I tend to misdirect and misappropriate my worship, praise, and devotion far too frequently.

Truly, my brain can’t wrap around anything close to a concept of who You are, how powerful You are, how far You can see, and how much You love us all. And I have no concept of eternity whatsoever – I can’t even start to figure that out! Louis Giglio, founder of the Passion movement, puts it this way:

Life is the tale of two stories – one finite and frail, the other eternal and enduring. The tiny one – the story of us – is as brief as the blink of an eye. Yet somehow our infatuation with our own little story – and our determination to make it as big as we possibly can – blinds us to the massive God Story that surrounds us on every side. (2)

I heard a Christian speaker once who asked his audience to imagine a large telephone pole laid on its side at the front of the stage where he was speaking. Then he asked them to imagine a tiny vertical scratch on the pole. He said that the pole was all of eternity, and our life was the width of the scratch! He said that we get so caught up in our lives within the scratch (i.e., in our “scratch-houses”, our “scratch-jobs”, our “scratch-cars”, etc.) that we forget that we’re all just tiny scratches in this telephone pole of eternity.

It’s impossible to imagine a God that even extends out past the ends of the telephone poles on either side! But that’s how big You are, God. That’s why You are worthy of my praise – because You can’t be measured – You can’t be put into a neat little formula. To attempt this would actually be an insult to You. Worship is an acknowledgement that we cannot fathom Your greatness, we cannot grasp Your mercy, we cannot measure Your power. Miller says:

Too much time is spent charting God on a grid. Too little time is spent allowing our hearts to feel awe. So, by reducing Christian spirituality to formula, we deprive our hearts of wonder. (3)

And so, to truly worship You, God, involves faith. We must accept that which we cannot prove with postulates and formulas. We must rely on something we can’t even fully grasp. We must believe in the supernatural (literally: “above natural”). As Miller says, “You cannot be a Christian, can’t truly worship God, without being a mystic.” (4)

God, I will have faith in You, even when it seems illogical to do so. I will follow You, even when I can’t get it all to add up in my finite mind. I will trust You, even when I can’t understand You. Because as I trust You, as I follow You, as I have faith in You, I begin to understand Your power, Your heart, and your nature better and better – I begin to see You more clearly the more time I spend with You. Like Miller says:

I am early in my story, but I believe I will stretch out into eternity, and in heaven I will reflect on my early days, the days when it seemed sometimes like God was down a dirt road, walking toward me. Years ago, He was a swinging speck in the distance. Now He is close enough that I can hear His singing. Soon I will see the lines on His face. (5)

I too, God, can hear your singing sometimes. Faintly, amongst the bustle of life, I hear Your song. And the song is calming to me. It is encouraging. It is joyful. And I want to hear more of it.

I trust You, O God, with my future. I don’t know exactly what it holds, but I know You will be there, and I know that You love me, and that I will know You better then… so I am not afraid. I will walk with confidence and faith. I can’t wait to see what You have waiting for me! You are worthy of my praise, both now and forever. I love You, Abba!


ENDNOTES:

1. Donald Miller, Jazz Notes (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc., 2008), 99.
2. Louis Giglio, i am not, but i know I AM (Colorado Springs: Multnomah Books, 2005), 9.
3. Miller, Jazz Notes, 108.
4. Miller, Jazz Notes, 100.
5. Miller, Jazz Notes, 10.

SPECKS OF DUST

(3/17/09)
(Windy Gap Retreat Center, Weaverville, NC)

I was thinking about a question earlier as I was walking up to this secluded spot to sit down with You – “What is it that draws me to the mountains? What is up here that isn’t in Charlotte?” As I was reading Brennan Manning’s book, “The Importance of Being Foolish”, I think I realized the answer; or at least a portion of it: the mountains readily offer something that is more elusive and scarce back home – wonder. Manning suggests in his book that we have lost our sense of wonder in this tech-savvy, media-driven, information-overloaded culture. He says:

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when a thunderstorm caused grown men to shudder and feel small. But God is being edged out of his world by science. The more man knows about meteorology, the less inclined he is to make the Sign of the Cross during a thunderstorm. Airplanes now fly above, below, and around entire storm systems. Satellites reduce these once-terrifying events to photographs. What ignominy (if a thunderstorm could experience ignominy) to be reduced from theophany to nuisance! (1)

It is this loss of wonder that lulls us back into living life in the natural, at the expense of seeing the supernatural at work in our world. We worry instead of pray. We scheme instead of trust. We struggle instead of rest. We see the world instead of God. As Manning states later in the book, “It is impossible to consider God with heart and head filled with earthly business.” (2)

When standing in the presence of the mountains (and other overwhelmingly large natural wonders, such as oceans, canyons, or gigantic forests), we come face-to-face with our own relative smallness. We are forced to admit that we are a tiny part of a huge, living, breathing planet – which is itself a tiny speck of dust in a gigantic universe – all designed, held in place, and fully known by this God that we speak of and serve and worship.

The biblical psalmist David captured this sense of wonder and awe in Psalm 8:

1 O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!

3 When I look at the night sky and see the works of your fingers – the moon and the stars you set in place – 4 what are people that you should think about them, mere mortals that you should care for them?

David must have felt what I feel when I drive down the Blue Ridge Parkway, when I hike up to Beacon Heights, or go up to Wiseman’s View and look over across Linville Gorge at Table Rock. It is this unavoidable sense of smallness – and it is precisely this sense of smallness that eludes us when we are submerged in our everyday worlds… because in our everyday worlds, we are big (or at lease, we see ourselves that way). We are important people with important jobs and important ideas and important lives. But when we stand on a precipice overlooking an amazing mountain vista, we see ourselves as we really are – tiny as ants - specks of dust.

I am reminded of a reference made by Donald Miller in his book, “Searching for God Knows What”:

I remember seeing that made-for-TV miniseries with Shirley MacLaine called Out on a Limb. There’s a part in the movie where Shirley MacLaine goes out for a walk on the beach and starts twirling around, saying, “I am God, I am God, I am God,” right there in the waves. I heard a lecture by novelist Frank Peretti in which he wondered what that must have sounded like to God. He leaned up to the microphone and squeaked out, in a very little voice, “I am God, I am God.” He got a big laugh out of that from the audience. What he was saying was that Shirley MacLaine must have sounded very small to God, on account of she was standing way down on earth on a beach, twirling around. (2)

I can imagine MacLaine’s voice sounding to God like the tiny “whos” crying out in unison trying to be heard, “We are here, we are here, we are here!” in Dr. Seuss’ children’s classic, “Horton Hears a Who”.

David’s wonder then migrates to an entirely different place as he continues to compose Psalm 8:

5 Yet you made [humans] only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. 6 You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority – 7 the flocks and the herds and all the wild animals, 8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents.

I see emerging here three miracles that take my wonder (and must have taken David’s, as well) to an entirely new level.

The first miracle here is that You acknowledge us at all. Beyond our comprehension - yet there it is in black and white. And there is it in flesh and blood – every day of our lives. You see us. You know us. You want us to know You. You want a relationship with us – US… the tiny speck on the tiny speck. That alone is an amazing fact that is difficult for our finite minds to grasp. The God who created the moons of Jupiter and the Crab Nebula and the Sombrero Galaxy stoops down to count the hairs on our head.

The second miracle is that not only do You see all of us little specks of dust, but You put us in charge of this larger speck of dust, Earth. We are created in Your image – in other words, You created us and designed us to relate to You. And You have given us a position and an intellect just above the animals and just below You – “middle management”, so to speak. You have entrusted us with caring for and enjoying this world You created. You have entrusted us with Your precious artworks. We are caretakers of this garden of Yours called Earth. [This fact is both encouraging, considering what this implicates about our position with You; and disheartening, considering what a mess we’ve made of Your “garden”.] Amazing that You would lavish such love and trust on us little dust specks.

The third miracle is that You cared enough for us to make a way for us when we messed up this world of Yours, betraying the trust You had placed in us, and elevating ourselves to a false place of “importance”. You sent Your Son here as a speck of dust to walk among us, to teach us, and to give His life to save us. Your unfathomable love and care for all us little dust specks drove You to make the ultimate sacrifice to be in relationship with us.

Thank You, Abba, for seeing us, for listening to us, for knowing us, for caring for us, and for giving to us – US… the tiny dust specks on the tiny dust speck. You are truly an amazing God!

9 O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills all the earth!


ENDNOTES:

1. Brennan Manning, The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 2006 [2005]), 16.
2. Manning, The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus, 128.
3. Donald Miller, Searching For God Knows What (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc., 2004), 35.