He will meet you there

Lightning struck in the distance and we could tell the dark clouds were headed our direction. We were already exhausted from hiking all day. The fact that Mike had injured his ankle early in the day, forcing us to take turns carrying him and his pack, didn’t help.

We stopped for a minute to allow all the members of our Outdoor Skills class to catch up. Part of our grade was not just that we completed the three day backpacking trip, but that we completed it together.

Another member of our class turned on his weather radio for an update. There were tornado watches and warnings to the south and west of the Arkansas state park where we were hiking. They were headed our direction.

We put our heads together, looking at our map and trying to calculate how much farther it would be to the place we had planned to make camp for the night. It was mostly up hill, but it was where our professor expected us to be. If there were problems, that’s where he would begin searching.

A lone hiker passed us going the other direction. A ranger further up the trail had told him about the weather and advised him to turn back. What should we do?

 

Looking back, I can say the journey of my life hasn’t been exactly as I predicted it. Often, the route went places I wouldn’t have chosen. Ups and downs. Carrying heavy weight. Storms I never dreamed of.

Could this be what God really had in mind for me? I wonder if He caused these things, as James 1:2-4 says, in order to produce in me perseverance, maturity and wholeness. Or, I sometimes wonder if these struggles we all face are just part of the fallen world we live in, not intended by God—not caused by Him—but used, in the end, for our good (Romans 8:28).

Either way, here we stand: somewhere in between that place we began and the place we planned to end. We’re carrying our brother, our friend, and the weight of his pack. We don’t know exactly what the weather holds. Some have turned the other way, headed down the easy path to where they know it’s safe. Do we continue to climb? Do we hunker down? Head for home? What should we do?

 

It was the 1990’s, so in our group, there was one cell phone. We moved to a clearing so we could get a signal and called our professor. “Keep going,” Chris said, “I’ll meet you there.”

This whole experience had been kind of cryptic. He never gave us more information than we needed. He wanted us to trust him, and trust what he had taught us. None of us had hiked this area before, but turned toward the mountain and continued.

It was less than an hour to the summit, the place we had planned to camp. By this time it was starting to rain and the storm was close. We could see ahead where the trail broke through the trees into an open area, so we picked up the pace.

Chris had told us he’d meet us here, but we didn’t understand. How could he? But there he stood as we emerged from the trees, next to a 15-passenger van. His arms were folded across his chest, and his smile stretched from ear to ear. “How was the hike?” he asked. Then he hurried us into the van and drove us down the highway out of the danger of the storm.

He knew what we hadn’t. At the top of the mountain, the wilderness of our route met the paved roads of the state forest campground. And he had planned to meet us there all along.

 

I’m not sure how it will end, but I know that somewhere, up ahead, the wilderness of our journey will meet the glorious streets our Father has paved with gold. He’s waiting there for us. He will meet you there.