Street Lights and Pavement

In less than a month, my wife Shelby, my daughter Harley, and I will be traveling to the most beautiful place on earth (at least on my earth) - Big Bend National Park. This will be my fifth time to go, and I can't wait. There's something about being around massive boulders and arid desert that just recharges my internal battery and refocuses my mind.

But, knowing that my wife has never been there and this will be my daughter's first camping and hiking trip, I know that we'll have to do some hiking here to prepare ourselves. We'll have to eat differently and workout. Why? Because there's some intense hiking out in Big Bend. And if we don't prepare ourselves, we're gonna find it extra difficult to persevere on some of these trails. 

And so, on Sunday, we took our first mini hike. I looked on Google maps to see what creeks were near our apartment, and found one that was within walking distance. So, we loaded our backpacks, filled the water bottles, put on our shoes to break them in, grabbed some trail food, and headed out. If anything, it would give us a tiny feel of hiking even though we were only going for a few hours. 

The first segment of the hike dealt with paved roads, fast cars, and street lights. In order to get to where we were going, we had to walk through what represented the daily monotony, the daily grind. There wasn't really anything noticeably different than if we were driving. It was cars, streetlights, and paved roads. About fifteen minutes into our hike, we came up to the creek we were going to follow, and it required us to get off the paved road and into the tall grass. So we descended down the grassy slope, off the overpass, and went toward the water. 

Once we did that, the scenery obviously changed. There were two completely different worlds running parallel to each other, and the world we were walking into had things like egrets, nutria rats, turtles, storks, and wild onions that you could pick from the ground and eat while you were hiking. The other part of this world that really caught me off guard was, I never knew how many bridges there actually were until I started walking under them. And under every bridge was a homeless person's camp. There was a whole network of bridges turned shelters, and I had no clue before I came on this hike. As we walked under the bridges, I felt like we were walking through people's living rooms and invading their privacy. So, in the friendliest way I could, I waved and smiled and tried using my body language to show them that I wasn't there to cause trouble but just passing through. 

There are two things that I grabbed from this experience, and the first was the art of saying yes. 

If we hadn't said yes to going on this short hike, we wouldn't have seen the spectacular world that lay just beneath the surface of the world of - we'll call it common sense. We would've stuck with what was familiar, routine, and somewhat comforting (as comforting as driving and dealing with other drivers can be). I wouldn't have had the opportunity to run after the nutria rat as if it were some undiscovered species of water monster. We wouldn't have seen the amount of effort that went into these homeless peoples' shelters. We wouldn't have seen the egrets, which led to our personal stories about egrets. We wouldn't have eaten the toasted coconut marshmallows or kicked the blue ball or saw the yellow rope or ate the graham crackers or gotten the blisters or felt the sunlight or ate the wild onions or saw the hawk's nest or seen how many turtles were in the creek or seen the woman picking up coins. 

We would have just . . . driven . . . on.

Through the street lights.

Through the traffic.

Focused on the pavement with yellow lines. 

Which brings me to my first point - saying yes often lets us see the spectacular world that exists just beneath the surface of the daily monotony. 

Wanna break out of the world of common sense and daily grind? Say yes.
Wanna break into a world that will blow your mind (or at least give you a different take on the world)? Say yes. 

And here's my second point. 

More often than not, we humans have this tendency to pray way too much, and do way too little. 

My friend Ryan who I've known since high school, is having his life turned upside down by alcohol. I don't even know if he knows it. I didn't when I was drinking. 

For the last few weeks, ever since his dad paid me a visit, I've been asking God to help find a solution. Every morning, when I remember, I ask God to help him find a solution. 

Isn't that what we do when we pray? We don't have a solution so we ask God to make a way to help her get better or help him get that job or help them get that home.

Which is all good. I have no qualms with any of that. 

But I wonder how many times we're part of the solution that we're seeking from God? 

The second thing I grabbed from our little hiking trip was this - having an attitude of yes is the glue that makes prayer work. It's our yes matched with God's yes. It's our will fused with God's will. 

How many times do we pray for others but have an attitude of no? How many times do we pray and have no motivation to play any sort of role in the solution? How many times do we not realize that if we're to pray, then we have to be ready to show up for the people we're praying for?

And so, a few weeks into my praying for my friend, he sent me a Facebook message. That was it. Just a hello . . . just like the creek was just a creek, and the bridge was just a bridge.

That was yesterday. Today is the day of saying yes to my long-time friend, rather than ignoring another text message, phone call, or email. Because, I want to be the kind of person that wants to see the fascinating world that lies just beneath the surface.  I want to be the kind of person that doesn't settle for the common sense world of street lights and pavement.

Jesus called it the kingdom of God.
Others call it the realm of the divine.
Ultimate Reality.

So, to sum this all up . . . 

Saying yes to things or people or places we'd normally say no to breaks us out of the world of common sense and monotony. It breaks us into the fascinating kingdom of God.

Having an attitude of yes during prayer places ourselves in a posture of being part of God's solution and not isolating ourselves from it.

Now go out and say yes today like your life depends on it, because, it kinda does.