God Speaks Clearly When You Are Too Tired To Talk...

If you know me at all, you know I hate hiking, sweating, outdoors, or anything remotely close to those things. You may also know my beautiful bride is an avid hiker, sweater, and do anything outdoors kind of girl. So the other day for a date day I thought Kristy would love it if I took her to hike Mt. Peak. The picture to the left is a picture of Mt. Rainier from Mt. Peak. Mt. Peak is in Enumclaw, Washington just a short drive from our town. Also, Mt. Peak is a volcanic knob that was encased by the later deposits of the Osceola Mudflow. The Osceola Mudflow occurred when part of Mt. Rainier errupted many years ago, sending a slurry of rock and glacier into the river valleys. Mt. Peak tops out at 1800 feet and used to have a Forest Service Fire Lookout at the top. The tower is long gone. All that is left is the evidence of the foundations.

We hiked Mt. Peak and Kristy had a good time... I was huffing and puffing the entire way up!

A few days pass and my work out partners, Mr. Scott Hatfield and Scott Fisher asked, "Hey, tomorrow we are going to go hike Mt. Peak for some cardio at 6:30 AM. Are you in?" So I decided to kill my flesh and say yes to the absolutely crazy invite. Now I have hiked more in 5 days than practically my entire life.

This morning 6:30 AM came and was time to head out. I already talked my self out of doing it and then back into doing probably a hundred times. Ultimately I decided to do it. As I hiked up, a huge wind ripped my sweat towel right off my shoulders. This wind came on hard and quick. It came right at the time I was praying and asking God to bring along a bear to just maul me to death getting me out of this hike by taking me home to be with Him. Then I felt a check in my Spirit and I felt God say to me, "Turn around and walk up the Mountain backwards." To which I said, "Really? This beast is already hard enough walking forward... but You want me to walk it backwards?" He said, "Just do it. Walk backwards." So I did. I turned around and started stepping backward walking up the mountain. As I looked out over the beautiful trees, mountains, snow and much more, God said to me, "Look how far you've come." I thought, "Yeah, but I am not even 1/4 of the way done with this hike. God just kept reminding me of how far I had come.

Then I felt God had said, "If you walk backwards with Me you never have to worry about how much longer you have or worry about what is ahead. You just need to trust Me and let me lead you. Just look and see how far I have brought you already. You have come a long way." I feel like God spoke many other personal things to me during that hike this morning. I also felt that what God shared with me this morning can be applied to anything in our life. We love to know what is ahead. We don't like risk, we don't like trusting others, or giving up control. We love to take care of business ourself. But it is beautiful to allow God to move and work in our lives. And then look back and see where God took you. If you are down and out right now remember the history you have with God and let Him remind you. He loves to remind us of all the amazing work He has done in our life.

God spoke to me the most when I was too tired to talk. Most of the time we love to do all the talking, asking, pleading, begging with God. But the best place to be is to just BE with God and allow Him to speak to you.