First Hiking Trip of the Year

Last Wednesday night, during a town-wide power outage, I ended up at a random birthday party at the college. It was during that candle-light party that I met Mike and Joel, who were going on a hike the next day. Being on vacation, and having nothing scheduled to do, I took them up on an offer to go along. I didn't know anything about them, but I was more than happy to have two hiking partners.


The next day, we arranged for my car to be dropped off at the end of the trail-- the same trail that Didier and I hiked last August as an overnighter, except we would do it in one afternoon. That would be an 11 mile hike up and down two mountains that were each approximately 4000 feet high: Mount Ellen and Mount Abraham. While driving, I prayed for an opportunity to share the Gospel with both these guys.

The trail was beautiful, more so than I remembered. At one point, there was this narrow cave that we descended into. In that cave, on the floor, was a sheet of ice that had never melted all the way since the end of winter! There are things you can see, when you have the courage to crawl into a tiny crack of a vent on the side of a rock, which nobody else on earth gets to see. We also got to see a red eft, which is the colorful juvenile stage of the common spotted newt. I picked him up and held him for a while before putting him back down off the trail. Besides those sights, there were the usual compensations of summit views from several peaks.

The highlight of the hike, however, was the conversation we held throughout the 11 miles and 4,000 feet of altitude. We began talking about occupations and I mentioned being a minister might be interesting. “Oh, what kind of minister?” he asked. As best as I could, I labeled my theological and ecclesiastical bent-- Reformed, Calvinist, Evangelical, … “Oh, you’re a TULIP child?!” And that was the opportunity to talk about faith.

For three or four hours, I listened to Joel and Mike talk about their views of morality, of God, of existence. And I even allowed myself to learn from them, about ideas of how people make decisions (you should perfectly balance the three boulders of self, integrity, and the objective good of all), how humanity is moving towards collectivism, and how people are asleep most of their lives (as Emerson pointed out). It was a truly engaging and challenging discussion with some debate, but much honest evaluation from both sides.

And then Joel asked, “so what is your world-view, Horatio?” And there, with slow conviction, and with my Tilley Hat drawn to my heart, I spoke of a God of relationships, who wants people everywhere to find their greatest satisfaction and meaning in Him. I spoke of holiness and sin, of the Cross of Jesus Christ, of fear giving way to love... and the Holy Spirit spoke through me.

Joel had a hard time with the idea that people should obey some kind of authoritarian God... or that God was even relational at all. At that point, the verse from 1 John 4 came to me. "Perfect love drives out all fear." I used a common illustration: what if your wife asks you to wash the car? Do you do it because you’re afraid you won’t get dinner? Or do you do it because you love her? Nod. That conversation lasted for almost the entire duration of our hike.

"Wow, it’s been a long time since someone has given something to think about in terms of Christianity," he later confessed during dinner. "I wish I had your heart. I cultivate my soul with my head, but what you're talking about is in the heart... I'm not ready to change my mind about God yet, but I am willing to be convinced." Praise God for the opportunity and for the Spirit taking over that conversation... I'll continue to pray.