When the waves break
And you’re surrounded
He tries to kill you
And you allow it

Over and over he says
I surround you
I never leave my beloved
I’ve found you

–Sister  Andrew Belle

I am fairly certain that spiritual one-liners (Everything happens for a reason!) do not help as well as most people think.  The spiritual out-of-context one-liners are helpful to some, but they don’t grab me as much anymore.

I can never decide why this is.  I simply don’t learn from some verses as well as I want to, I learn in pictures.

This might be why I get all emotional when I watch Pixar movies lately.

The great C.S. Lewis said once that, “Children’s stories that are only enjoyed by children are not actually good stories…”  I love that quote.

I have watched a lot of kids movies in the last 3 years, and have decided a good half of them are terrible. However, almost every Pixar movie I have ever seen has made me teary at one point or another (don’t even get me started on the beginning montage of UP or the end of Cars when the Hudson Hornet shows up).  I have been trying to understand why this is and keep settling in on that they simply are pictures of truth.

All truth that you find will arrest your soul.

When you see truth, it instigates a reaction.  It moves you.  It points back into you and pulls out feelings you did not know were down there.

Usually, when I don’t know what to do with me, I put my blue Nikes on and start running until things make more sense.   This time I was really confused, so I started driving instead.

I did not stop until I reached the top of Sonora Pass.

Just a little background, Sonora Pass is about 2 and a half hours from where I live.  A high pass in the Sierras, it is only open a few months a year.  Also at about 9600 feet up, my little black Corolla hated me for that drive.

I had never stopped there before, which was a little fun.  When I did, I noticed that there are trails up the ridge to peaks that are far higher than the actual road I was on.  I was not sure that I should hike up there, but I also was not sure that I shouldn’t either.

I like those kinds of options.

I hiked for a few miles until about half a mile of trail was left between the first summit and the huffing and puffing version of me.  Out on the ridge, I was completely drawn in by the utterly seductive view.  At least 10,000 feet up, I could see everything from up there, at least 60 miles in three directions.

And then there was the wind.

It rushed up the side of the ridge with a howl that was so constant and strong.  It filled my ears so loudly that it shut out any other sound.

I turned to keep on keeping on, when something squirmed in the small brush in front of me along the trail.  Snake!

I…hate…snakes!  And this was not the first one I had seen on the trail so far either!

I am no biologist, but I have seen the movie Anaconda.  I have no idea what kind they were, but that was enough for me.  Movies have scary music to signal that the main character is going the wrong way; real life has snakes.  I turned and ran away like a guy who really, really hates snakes…

An hour later, I had driven down the steep turns and out of the pass, and decided that maybe, a hike around Pinecrest Lake, a little farther down the mountain, would be a sweet idea.

I had gotten about halfway round the lake when again, the view got to me.  The sun was starting to make its downward scoot to the horizon by this point and it reflected off the lake surface like a sea of faintly heaving glass.  It was so beautiful.

It was at this point that I threw out the question that I had been asking all morning, the one that I had searched for answers for all month it seems.  God, what am I supposed to do?  I just want to give up…

And nothing.

God, do you even remember where I am?

I did not get a trumpet shout and a scroll descending from heaven, but I did start remembering.  As I trekked in silence, my head was flooded with dear memories to my heart of times with students, leaders, and so many, many camps.

I remembered the…

Late night talks.

Seeing little 6th graders thrive into Juniors and Seniors.

Snowball fights.

Random conversations walking to dining halls.

All the decision cards I have on my desk.

Bus trips.

The feeling of a week of cafeteria food.

Hearing the Disneyland fireworks after Christ in Youth conferences.

That fire in a student’s eyes after camps.

That feeling you get when you are exactly where God wants you.

I thought it would stop there, but my heart wasn’t done for some reason.  The more I hiked, the more the thoughts came spilling out in utter randomness and love.

A wilderness hike with a few students last year.

Listening to pain explode from a student as they called out what really had happened to them.

Hearing through my tears about how I had wrecked a friendship.

The unspeakable joy when that friendship came back, but stronger.

Watching students teach their peers on a Wednesday night, one of who had taken off his shoes to do it because “that’s what Joel does…”

I think I scared a few hikers with all my tears at that point.  You don’t recover quickly from memories like that.

Awhile later I got in my car and headed towards a cabin in the woods that a family at church was graciously letting me spend the night at.

To my surprise, the dad, an elder at our church was there.  I knew that he might be there for a little bit, but quickly discovered that he had been working on the cabin all weekend and was going to spend the night up there with me.  It makes more sense why this is awesome if you know the guy…

We talked football, his latest project on the cabin (which was slightly out alignment, which I loved because I always think of him as the model of well dressed perfection), ate pizza and sat in rockers on the deck.  He had always talked to me about how he went and sat on the deck when life in Merced did not make sense to him.  I finally started to get it.

As the stars came out, so did a few beers (He’s a recovering Lutheran) and several hours of conversation.  I knew God was hiding all over it.

Early the next morning, I headed down the mountain to make it into town before church.  There is a turn, one of the final turns before you reach Merced, where you round a corner and for a moment, you are able to see all of Merced before going down a slight hill.  It is one of my favorite views, even though it lasts for a few moments.

I had been listening to a randomized mix of worship songs for the last two hours and the song just ‘happened’ to land on my favorite song of the moment right now, Oceans by Hillsong United.  Not the album mix.  The incredible live version at Red Rocks.  If you have heard this version, you know why.

As I turned the corner, seeing the city stretched out in front of me, the extremely talented Taya Smith, belted out…

“Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander

And my faith will be made stronger

In the presence of my Savior.”

It was one of those moments where you just know you will remember.

Those times when you look back and know, you just know, that nothing about it is coincidence.  Where your soul overrides your heart and there is nothing you can even do.

I heard a rabbi say recently, “You poor Christians!  You wonder why the bible does not say Jesus is God more.  It says it all the time, you just don’t listen!”

I think about that a lot of times.

I went out trying to find God, to get an answer from Him to take back down the mountain and say, “I know what to do now!” and because that moment had not come, I thought that there must be something wrong with me, or worse, maybe God did not want to be with me anymore.

Yet in the end, He was there the whole time screaming at me to just stop and listen.

I had woken up with Him.

I drove with Him.

He was in the wind on the steep ridges.

He stood in the soft glow of the sun through the trees.

He ran before me at the lakes edges.

He was in the words of my friend on the deck under the stars.

He spoke in the middle of the night.

He came along in the car on the way to church.

He wept with me as we entered the city.

And He never gave me a straight answer…

I don’t think God would give an answer to my questions because He knew that it wouldn’t mean enough to me.

Instead, He gave me pictures…

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

-Psalm 139

“And Aslan said, ‘Beloved, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.’

“Then he breathed upon me and took away the trembling from my limbs and caused me to stand upon my feet. And after that, he said not much, but that we should meet again, and I must go further up and further in. Then he turned about in a storm and flurry of gold and was gone suddenly.

“And since then, O Kings and Ladies, I have been wandering to find him and my Happiness is so great that it even weakens me like a wound. And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me Beloved, me who am but as a dog.”

-Emeth

The Last Battle  C.S. Lewis

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