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.

Trust GOD from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for GOD’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track. —Proverbs 3:5, 6 (MSG)

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.”

That was a piece of my story I share in my book Heartstone, where God asked me to pick up four stones…and later a heartstone. So where am I going with this.

Some time ago I heard “The Parable of the Pebbles,” which goes kind of like this: A man was walking in the desert when a voice said to him, “Pick up some pebbles, put them in your pocket, and tomorrow you will be both sorry and glad.” The man obeyed. He stooped down, gathered a handful of pebbles, and put them in his pocket. The next morning he reached into his pocket and found, instead of pebbles, diamonds, rubies and emeralds. Immediately he was both sorrowful and glad—glad that he had taken some, sorry he hadn’t taken more.

This fictional parable has lots of parallels to our own life. As we walk out this thing called life, a real voice is calling out us, telling us to pick up something (for me it was stones) that is right in front of us — something that you can never get enough of, but whatever amount you pick up will benefit you greatly.

Many times, we don’t understand the value of what we are doing until it is accomplished. The priceless pebbles of real wisdom are available to us and are usually right in there in front of us, in God’s Word; and the voice of wisdom — God’s voice — is encouraging us to listen. How many of us will be wise enough to hear and heed the voice?

I almost ignored His voice, thinking that picking up stones was just a crazy thought in my mind. I was sorrowful that the four stones would eventually become my “heap of stones” that I would place in the dry riverbed of my past as a signpost to always remember where I have been. And, glad that the heartstone is symbol and reminder of where I have been, where I am, where God has brought me from and what He is doing now in my life.

Listening and learning is like collecting pebbles (or stones); it may seem worthless at the time but who knows when they will turn into precious gems or golden nuggets. Picking up stones changed my life and I’m so glad I chose to listen to God’s still quiet voice!

Pick up a copy of my book, Heartstone: A Journey out of the midnight of my soul.

Heartstone is a journey of destiny, a story of a life turned upside-down for the best possible reason. Step into the story and discover what happens when a broken life has a head on collision with a broken world! [WARNING] This book isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s for those who have the courage to face life head on and walk it out with God!