Have you ever noticed how much noise there is around us?
Silence in the world we live in is a very rare commodity. There seems to always be someone or something competing for our time and our silence is invaded from every direction if we let it.
Why is this a concern for you and me? Because God does some some of His best and most powerful work in us, in the silence. Why is this difficult for us? Because we often choose to be at war with our silence and seem avoid it at all cost. Quick test: I bet that you take your smartphone/tablet into the bathroom with you — don’t you?
Somehow we have become conditioned to never unplug!
I was in a place in my life where I had lost my hope, my family, my house, many friends, my financial resources, and almost my job, and I kept crucifying myself with the regrets of my past and the fear of my future. Well, I had had enough and determined that it would be best for me to use some of my own strength, and I decided to go on a hike. I really needed to clear my thoughts and getting up on top of the mountains usually was a great remedy. What I didn’t realize is that God was smiling a bit because He had planned this. He had known about my circumstances from the very beginning.
Here is an excerpt from my book Heartstone where I had that collision with God in the silence.
As we drove into Franconia Notch State Park, in New Hampshire, the sky was crystal clear as His mercy rose with the shining of the morning sun. The beautiful light of day radiated upon the trees as the wind gently blew through them within the notch, personifying them as they clapped, singing His praises. It was early May in the Northeast, and in the higher elevations of the White Mountains were the familiar scenes of winter of snow and ice. It was cold!
Our destination was to summit the 5,260-foot mountain. This journey would be via the Bridle Path trail, which follows a western spur ridge of Lafayette, from Lafayette Place Campground on Interstate 93, past the Greenleaf AMC Hut, joining the Greenleaf Trail, and ultimately reaching the summit a short distance after the hut.
Up the mountain I went, to my destiny moment!
We finished lunch with a couple of other hikers on the back deck of the AMC hut and began our final ascent. It was getting colder, and we began putting on warmer gear as we navigated through more snow and ice. With the thinning of the air, the tighter gripping of the cold, and the thickening silence, an overwhelming desire to run ahead came over me. I motioned to my friend that I was going to run up ahead a bit, which he had no issue with. Closing in on the summit, with my heart pounding and my lungs stinging from the cold air, I somehow knew that a milestone of this journey was at hand. I saw a large rock come into view, converging with my path, and I soon found myself standing upon this large rock. It was as if the Lord had gone ahead and had prepared this place of peaceful solitude and comfort so I could clearly hear His voice without all the other distractions. Standing there upon the rock, I took a deep breath, lifted my head to the Heavens, and began to have a conversation with Him. Time relaxed for a moment. It was awesome.
It was here at this place of desolation, on this rock, on this mountain, where He spoke to my heart. Do you want to know what He said to me? He asked me to collect four stones when I got to the top of the mountain. So, standing in my own strength, leaning on my own understanding and ending the tranquil scene He had prepared for me, my response was, “You want me to do what?”
He knew that this would be my reaction, so it was through the wisdom of my friend, whom the Lord blessed me with on this hike, that I was reminded of other events in the Bible that go beyond our own understanding. God caused a donkey to talk to Balaam; asked Gideon to stand before the Midianites with three hundred men and nothing but trumpets, pitchers, and lamps; and asked Moses to strike a rock to get water. After being reminded of such events, picking up four stones didn’t seem so strange anymore. I thought if my friend didn’t think I was crazy and I knew that he wasn’t crazy — I decided that maybe I wasn’t crazy after all. When we live by sight, we can only act on what we see, but God sees what we can’t. Remembering the words in 2 Corinthians 5:7, that we are to walk by faith and not by sight, I decided to just trust Him and be obedient.
After resting in that place for a bit, my friend and I decided it was time to head up to the summit, and it wasn’t long until I had that compelling desire again to run up on ahead of my friend.
Smiling, he said, “Go get those stones.”
I have climbed many mountains in the Northeast and I have to admit that Mt. Lafayette is one of the most beautiful and breathtaking places to be. It’s my favorite climb. The upper portion of the mountain is located within the alpine zone, which is an area characterized by little vegetation, rock fields, and harsh weather. When you finally make your way to the summit of Mt. Lafayette, you are blessed with a spectacular view of the surrounding area that spans multiple states. You are also greeted with the ruins of a hotel foundation that was once in use many years ago. It was behind the once protective walls of these hotel ruins where I put on my gloves and began to talk to the Lord, because I had no idea what He meant about picking up four stones when there were literally millions all around me.
After some time in prayer, I began to simply walk out in faith around the rocky and desolate mountaintop, picking up random stones amongst the millions of other stones at the top of this mountain. I spent a good thirty minutes or so walking in faith across the summit of this mountain looking for the stones He wanted me to pick up.
With stones in hand, I began my walk back to the foundational ruins to meet up with my friend. Along the way I had an overwhelming desire to cast one of the stones away, so I did, right off the side of the mountaintop. I would later learn that this act would become a symbolic metaphor of letting go of the baggage I was carrying in my life, such as divorce, my most recent sting of rejection.
It was cold enough on the mountain top that my breath hung in the air around me. With each step I took, the cold air tightened its grip, slowly eroding what faith I had left. I began wrestling with my thoughts: “Did God really talk to me, or did I somehow convince myself that He did? Seriously, go to the top of the mountain and pick up four stones? There are millions of stones up here…what am I doing? What four stones? What if I don’t find them?” As the battle continued in my mind, with a pure act of the will I put aside theology, religion, and what I knew to be real and true. Arriving at the edge of despair, the wonderful and warm thought that God may have really spoken to me began to consume my thoughts. I had to know, I had to take a chance. I had to see if these four stones were real, so with pure faith I continued my hunt for the last and final stone in this surreal game of hide and seek. As if something was guiding me, I stopped, looked down, and picked up a stone, and I somehow knew that this was the final stone. I couldn’t explain it, but I knew. The final, fourth stone had taken some time to find because I had to break through the barrier of my own mind, but I had found it!
Well, with my four stones, I headed back over to the foundation ruins to meet back up with my friend. The first thing he asked me was if I had found the stones, and as I opened my hand to reveal the four fractured pieces of stone on the backdrop of my black glove, to our amazement, they somehow fit together. I’m not kidding. These four stones fit together, forming almost a cross like shape when they were joined. I would find it hard to share this story if I did not have my friend as a witness to back it up.
I would later understand that these stones were significant. They would become the process of God that He would use for meaning along my journey.
We medicate with noise constantly, but God wants to meet you in the silence.
Did you realize that both Moses and Elijah were led to the same location some 500 years apart? They were both led to Mount Horeb, the mountain of God, which, translated, means “desolation.” For Moses, it was forty years in the wilderness; for Elijah, it was forty days without food as he became tired of standing alone for God; and for me, it was a lifetime of living for myself. In reality, I would soon learn that it was a place of renewal, a place of new beginnings, and a place of a personal encounter with the living God: a symbolic place of intimacy where God meets us!
Are you ready to unplug from your hectic life for a moment and step into the silence with God, to see what He has to say to you?
It just may be the course correction you need to step into your Divine destiny!
