Growing up, I spent countless nights in the solace of the wild. Even from a young age, I felt a deep connection to the remote places where the mountains stood tall and void of distraction, the rivers ran strong, and God’s creation teemed with life. There is something comforting about this place that I have not found anywhere else on Earth. Paul speaks in Romans about God’s eternal power and divine nature, and he says that these things “have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made”. When I stand on a mountaintop and look out over the valley, I can’t help but be in awe, to look on God’s eternal power and divine nature.
I have been in places that, at the same time confronted me with the danger and harsh reality of the wilderness and the calm comfort of its untainted beauty. God never intended our lives to be easy, but he did give us a peace that surpasses understanding, and all we have to do is look on him, surrendering the distractions of the life that we try so hard to control apart from him.
I spent some time in Malawi as a missionary. We were in a peaceful, rural area, mostly surrounded by Muslim villages. What I remember most about this place was the sky. I would lie on my back for hours sometimes, when it was dark, and I could count dozens of shooting stars, but what really got me was the Milky Way. To look up where I could see that enormous band stretch across the night sky and realize just how small I am… to realize that this was only a sliver of God’s creation… I was blown away. Can you imagine that, out of all of this unfathomable creation, God knows my name, let alone the number of hairs on my head? I suddenly had an understating of David’s psalm when he said, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”
When we take time, to go into the wilderness and have these experiences, away from the lights, the traffic, the busyness of our routine and allow God to show himself, it changes the way we understand the world. It restores our souls. It is my hope to pass these experiences on to my family and the people around me.
-Isaiah
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