Clouds on the Horizon

At 34 years old, married and with three kids I think I've officially moved beyond the "young adult" phase of life and started stepping into, or maybe running into, the "middle age" phase of life. At this point, I should theoretically have some experience under my belt to navigate life with a bit more grace than I may have had in my teens or twenties, but I often encounter nagging doubts in my mind about how I will actually respond if, or when, some more serious trials emerge in my life.

By God's grace, I've walked through these first 34 years of life without much external adversity. Without question, I've faced numerous trials rooted in my own poor decisions and in dealing with sin in my life but these have been mostly my own doing. In God's providence I was blessed with a healthy family both growing up and now in my own home. I haven't had to walk through some relatively common trials like sickness or death of loved ones, job loss, long term poverty, war, or divorce. While this has certainly been a blessing I am also regularly reminded that this will not always be the case. If I'm honest, there have been times where I've questioned how I would fair through a more severe trial, and it has worried me at times to know that I can't always see what's on the horizon. I was reminded of this on a recent trip to Alaska where I had the opportunity to spend a few days hiking in Denali National Park.

We flew into Fairbanks, Alaska for the last full week of August. A great friend of mine is serving in the Army at Fort Wainwright and I've been putting off visiting him and his family for a few years now. This year, I decided that I couldn't justify putting of the trip for another year as as he'll likely be transferred to another base by next summer. As I've moved into "middle aged" life, one of the other changes has been the novelty of a bank account with greater than three digit balances which allows for periodic trips like this one.

We planned to set our itinerary generally on-the-fly in response to weather conditions but we knew there would likely be some rain to deal with. We intended to try to spend at least one day, if not more, hiking in Denali. In order to see the mountain we knew we would need a relatively clear day in the park as we'd done a little research in advance to find that only 30% of park visitors are able to see Denali during their visit.

Based on the best weather forecasting we could find we decided to set our day in the park as Wednesday. The forecast was still a bit spotty but it the best window we could see in the forecasts we were able to find. We arrived Tuesday night and our first attempt to book a tent campsite in the park was quickly derailed when we were told that tent camping was temporarily closed because they had a bear tearing holes in tents the prior day. We were advised to find another private campground outside the park, which turned out to be about a mile away... I'm sure the bears don't travel that far.

We enjoyed a dry evening around a small campfire with some dehydrated camp meals for dinner and then turned in for the evening. After an uneventful night without any unwanted furry visitors we set out for the park in the morning. As we left camp we began to catch glimpses of the mountains which were covered in the same overcast, low clouds as we had seen the prior day on our drive down from Fairbanks to Denali. We spent the morning hiking in the park and then planned to take the park bus out farther into the park where we hoped to get a glimpse of Denali.

The entire day I was struck by how beautiful the weather was in the area of the park we were hiking yet out on the horizon the clouds were just low enough the conceal the giant Denali peak. We spent our day enjoying views of the foothills and wildlife. Photographer Jack Brauer captured the spectacular beauty of Denali coming out of the clouds in the link below. You can easily see the rocky foothills which appear, in their own right, to be formidable peaks. Then, Brauer accurately describes, "when the clouds break up and Denali emerges, its massive scale is mind-boggling, like a Himalayan peak got misplaced in Alaska."

https://www.mountainphotography.com/photo/denali-in-the-clouds/?gallery=alaska-and-yukon

In many ways, the nature of Denali being hidden in the clouds parallels the trepidation that I've felt with regard to trials that are almost certainly looming on the horizon. The trials are currently concealed and I'm living in a season of good weather, easy conditions. I'm not able to see it coming but it is only a matter of time until a new trial emerges and must be reckoned with. The question I've faced is, how do I prepare? What can I do now to prepare to walk through a trial that could easily be at a scale I've never encountered?

At the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus describes for us this very situation in the parable of the two builders, or two foundations. In Matthew 7:24-27 Jesus teaches his followers with these words:

Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash.

In this parable we see two men who each built themselves a home. Each of the men had opportunity to plan where to build their home, and they would have known that storms do sometimes occur. When they were building their homes, the weather was fine - there was no storm to face. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, the storm came and revealed the strength of the foundation of each man's home. The firm foundation of the home built on the rock did not protect his home from the storm, it upheld the home through the storm. Both men faced the same rain and wind pounding on their homes. In the same way, each of us will encounter storms in life that will reveal the strength of our foundation.

The parable defines the man who built his house on the rock as the man who "hears these words of mine and acts on them." So we might say that the rock that we build on, to be upheld through the storm, is a two part rock. First, we hear the words of Jesus. How do we do this? We spend time in the word of God, we sit under biblical teachers, we pray and listen for God's Holy Spirit to lead and guide us. Then, part two, we act on the words we hear. James 1:22-25 describes a person who hears the word of God and fails to act:

But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror. For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of person he was.

In some ways, this approach to preparation for trials may seem a bit simplistic. We tend to look for fancy programs, concepts, books, or new approaches to deal with complex realities in our lives. In this case though, I think there is a strong argument to be made that our best preparation for whatever storms may be on the horizon of our lives is in hearing the word of God and acting on it. Humbling ourselves to listen closely to God's word and then respond to him when the "weather" is good in our lives will be invaluable preparation when the storm is raging.

It's my prayer that you make time to sit and listen to the word of God and then act on it. The bible teaches that we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10) He doesn't need you to do his bidding - he invites you into his redeeming work to experience and truly know his goodness, sovereignty, and grace. As you walk in the works he prepared you will grow in our faith toward him. As you hear his words, walk where he leads, and see the grace he pours out towards you, your trust and faith in him will grow into a firm foundation that can carry you through any storm or over any mountain that emerges on the horizon of your life.