Modern Disciple Magazine for Men (MDM4M), published in Canada
JUNE / JULY 2004
Cover |
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One-On-One with Jeff Frankenstein |
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Socially Acceptable Sin
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The Music of Duvall
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More Than Accountability
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God in the Wild
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The Pond or the Power
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Surrender
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LifeLine
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Viva III
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GOD IN THE WILD,
by Stephen Barkley
It is God's manner of dealing with men, to "lead them into a
wilderness, before he speaks comfortably to them." -
Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, Part 2, Section 8
The problem with leading is that there are always people following
you. Even that's fine until you realize that you're not quite
where you thought you were. In late January, 2001, I had led
people (quite literally) up a creek.
Killarney Provincial Park is incredibly beautiful-especially in
the winter. With no pollution wafting up from the GTA, and no
pollen clouding the air, everything seems sharper and more vivid.
There's something sickly inspiring about crawling out of your
sleeping bag into minus thirty-degree temperatures. Over the
past few years it has become our tradition: we camp during the
coldest time of each winter.
This particular year, we thought it would be interesting to leave
the beaten trail. Armed with a 1:50 000 scale topographical map
and a compass, we set off through waist deep snow in search of an
elusive pond. Since I owned the map and compass, I took the lead.
Unfortunately, I knew little about orienteering. We ended up
following a creek to a small swamp nestled between two ridges. We
sent the most energetic person from our crew up the side of the
ridge to see if our pond was anywhere close. He came back down
ten minutes later having seen nothing but higher ridges. It turned
out that we had followed the wrong creek.
I'm an on-time type of person. If there's a meeting called for
7:00 p.m., then I'm there at 6:55 p.m. I had to suppress a brief
moment of panic just the other day when I found our car clock set
ten minutes too fast. Now please understand-I'm not psychotic.
I don't expect anyone else to live this way. It's just who I am.
Naturally, I had laid out my plan for the hike into Killarney. I
figured out when the sun would set, the amount of time it would
take to set up camp, and worked backwards to establish an ETA. The
plan was now helplessly off course. Add to this the fact that when
we finally backtracked to the official trail, I promptly fell
through the ice into an uninviting creek. Time in the wild has an
interesting way of reorienting our lives.
The wilderness is a part of our heritage. From the moment God
placed a flaming sword at the garden gate, we have been living in
the wild. No matter how much concrete and asphalt we surround our
lives with, wilderness is always just around the corner. Scripture
sometimes calls it the desert, but it means the same thing: it is a
place of solitude, a place of temptation, and a place of growth.
Next: Solitude - Page 2.
