The following is an excerpt from my personal journal dated September 11, 2015.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I
were celebrating our 28th wedding anniversary at a beautiful log
cabin nestled in the north Georgia mountains. My wife loves the outdoors, so we
went on a few hiking trails nearby. One of them was Raven Cliff Falls trail.
It’s a 2.5-mile hike through shaded woods along a creek with several lesser
falls and pools. It was cool and a bit rainy, so it was an enjoyable hike.
As we were nearing the end of the
hike, we heard a noise behind us. We turned to look and it was two women, an
older woman and what appeared to be her adult daughter. They were walking
briskly, probably for exercise. I told Cheryl, “At the pace they are moving,
they will pass us by in a few minutes.” We had been in no hurry; we stopped
several times along the way to explore a side trail, to take a picture of a
flower or a section of the creek we thought beautiful, or to check out one of
the many campsites in case we ever decided to come back with the rest of the
family. Sure enough, within a few minutes, the pair passed us by and
disappeared around a bend in the trail ahead. I figured we would see them at
the falls when we reached them shortly.
But not too long after, we spotted
them ahead, stopped along the side of the trail, huffing and puffin. They
looked tired and out of breath. They were looking at one of the larger falls
along the way to Raven Cliff itself. As we passed, I asked them, “Catching your
breath before the finish?” The older woman panted, “No… we can see it from
here.” She pointed to the waterfall. “Close enough is close enough,” she said
with an exhausted smile. I thought to myself as we walked on. Wait,
does she think that’s Raven Cliff Falls? Does she
think they were there?
The actual falls is an impressive
sight. Two massive, towering cliffs of solid granite, with a waterfall that
gushes through a break between them, ending in a secluded cave with a pool of
icy, cold, fresh water to splash around in and be refreshed by. It’s definitely
worth the two and a half mile walk.
The waterfall the two women pointed
to was nice… but it’s hardly a substitute for the real Raven Cliff Falls! I
found myself becoming anxious for them as we walked on. I kept looking over my
shoulder to see if they would continue on and come to the real falls. “I hope
they aren’t going to turn back,” I said to Cheryl. “It would be a shame to come
so close and stop just short of the payoff.”
Sure enough, after just a few
minutes more of walking, we turned a corner on the trail and it opened up to
the majestic granite cliffs and the towering waterfall. It was hidden from
sight by the twist and turns of the trail; you could not see it until you were
there. Excited and spurred on by the prospect of getting up to the water,
Cheryl and I scrambled up an incline littered by roots and limb and loose rock.
In fact, the most arduous and strenuous part of the whole trail was right there
at the end.
Once we reached the falls, I looked
back once more to see if the two women were coming. No sign. I whistled loudly.
Everything in me wanted to shout, “Don’t stop now! Keep going! You’re almost
there! It’s worth it! Just keep going!”
The two women never came. We never saw them again, not even on the way
back. Cheryl and I talked on the return trip about how they must have thought
that they had seen all there was to see, were unimpressed and turned back,
disappointed and probably a little bitter. “Really?!
This is
what we came all this way to see? We suffered and wore ourselves out for THIS?!” We imagined them going
back home and telling their friends, “Don’t bother with Raven Cliff Falls. What
a waste of time! We did it and it was nothing special.” How many people would
never get to experience it because they believed their report? How many people
would never even start the trail because they didn’t finish it?
It’s not hard to see where I am going with this. All weekend Cheryl and
I joked that every trail was “rich with metaphors” for following Christ. I
believe He wanted to join the conversation about trails and paths and enduring
to the end. Raven Cliff Falls was His statement on the matter.
Rewind about two weeks before our
hike to the falls. I had been listening to a podcast by John Eldredge. He was
talking about his practice of asking God for a word or theme for the upcoming
new year. He usually does this on New Year’s Day, he said. I had heard this
idea before and it intrigued me. But it’s August already, I thought. It’s
too late to get a word from God about my year. At the exact moment I had that
thought, John Eldredge said on his podcast, “It’s never too late to ask God to
give you a word for the season of your life you are in now.” Ha! Ok, then.
So I prayed, “Father, do You have a word or theme for where I am right
now?” Immediately, in my mind I heard, as clear as day, the word, “Endure.” It
resonated in my heart. It lined up with so much that I had been reading in the
Word and experiencing in my life. It rang true in my whole being, right down to
my soul.
That night, I told Cheryl I had asked for a word. She said, Wait, don’t
tell me. Let me ask about your word and see if God confirms it.” She sat
silently praying for a moment. “OK, what was your word?” she asked. “Endure,” I
said. She jumped and slapped my leg playfully, a big smile on her face. “No
way! That’s exactly what I heard, just the way you
said it just now… ‘Endure.’ ” So I began looking everywhere
for what God might be saying or revealing about enduring. The word began
cropping up in almost every passage of scripture I read in my prayer times.
So when we had that experience at Raven Cliff Falls, God got my
attention. There are promises to those who endure to the end. There are
rewards. There are also dire warnings for those who don’t. Here are a few
things I believe He said to me about endurance in connection with our hike on
the trail:
Faith is crucial. If you don’t believe that what’s
at the end of the trail is worth whatever it takes to get there, you will give
up before you find out. You will never know.
Pace yourself. Don’t be in such a hurry that
you miss beauty and wonder and joy along the way. Take time to rest and catch
your breath. Draw strength and encouragement from the journey itself. If you
put your head down just to soldier through, you may burn out before you get to
the end and find yourself settling for something less, becoming disappointed
and cynical and bitter. You may actually discourage others from ever starting
by your failure to finish.
Don’t walk alone. Two are better than one on a
journey. There is great value in sharing the adventure with others who want to
finish with you. Allow other voices to encourage you when you lose your desire
to go on. Allow them to share wisdom on how to best handle obstacles on the
trail. Another pair of eyes can see things yours might miss. It’s wisdom.
Look for the trail markers. They have been put there to
guide you by the ones who blazed the trail before you. When my wife hiked part
of the Appalachian Trail the year prior, she noticed that occasionally there
were these white rectangles called blazes painted on trees along the path for
when you needed to know you were still going in the right direction, or when
the path took a weird turn or seemed confusing. Just when you might be
thinking, Am I lost? Did I make a wrong turn? Did I wander
off the trail somehow? there was a blaze to reassure you and direct you to the next section.
But you have to 1) know what they look like, 2) know what they mean, and 3)
keep your head up and your eyes open so you don’t miss them. Comfort can be a
distraction. It makes us lazy and less aware of our situation. Stay alert.
It gets hardest at the end. The hardest part of the trail is
often that last little bit. You know you’re close, but it’s been a long walk.
You’re tired, you can sense it’s almost over, and then you face the steepest,
most strenuous climb. Don’t quit! Endure. It’s worth it. Jesus warned His
followers that the closer they got to Him, and the closer they got to His
return, the more they would suffer like Him. If I am not experiencing this, I
have to ask myself, “Have I stopped moving forward? Am I camped along the trail
in a cozy spot, no longer even on the path?”
You can’t see it from a
distance. Like
the trail to Raven Cliff Falls, close enough is not
close enough. It
doesn’t cut it. You never see the falls until you reach them. It’s not
something you can admire from a distance to save yourself some trouble. You
have to keep walking all the way or you will never even know what you missed.
Tell people about it. Show them where the trailhead
is. Describe the falls. Tell them what you saw and how it made you feel. Get
them excited. Offer to hike with them. Point out all the cool stuff along the
way. Encourage them to endure to the end.
“And let us not grow weary of
doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9, emphasis mine)
“Not that I have already
obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because
Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made
it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward
to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the
prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12-14,
emphasis mine)
“For you have need of endurance, so
that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For,
yet a little while, and the coming One will come and will not delay; ‘but My
righteous one will live by faith, and if he shrinks back, My soul has no
pleasure in him.’ But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed,
but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.” (Hebrews 10:36-39)
“Therefore, since we are
surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every
weight, and the sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to
Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith, who for the joy that was set
before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right
hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2, emphasis mine)
