STUCK! (excerpt from “How to Be a Hero in 3 Easy Steps” book)

Author’s note:  The following is a pre-edited segment from the book I’m writing called “How to Be a Hero in 3 Easy Steps”, a book dedicated to discussing the importance of Christian parents and leaders seeking to provide the next generation with guideposts to a relationship with Christ.  This is done by developing Godly character traits in our own lives as we model it for them.  The most effective way of molding our kid’s character is the intentional molding of our own!  The following is an excerpt from an introductory chapter called “The Journey of A Thousand Miles”.  Enjoy

What is the best food you’ve ever eaten?

Is it some awesome little dish at a restaurant that you discovered before it became cool?  Is it a favorite meal your loving spouse makes for you?  Is it a nostalgic meal that nobody but your mother could ever perfect?  Would it be a clear winner for a “last meal” choice?

Mine wouldn’t be!

That is for CERTAIN!

Probably the best meal I’ve ever eaten was a oily can of poorly spiced Thai tunafish, a few crumbled crackers, a nearly expired chunk of jalapeño cheese and a red delicious apple.  Yep, you read right.  My favorite meal cost me a grand total of $1.50 and took about 20 seconds to prepare.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  My wife can cook some awe inspiring meals. I swear one of the reasons I married a sweet, Louisianan belle was to retain the skills of someone who can make a mean jambalaya! I’ve also had plenty of opportunity to eat in diners, dives and divine dining rooms across our continent and the world.  I’ve eaten food that I dream about on fevered nights when my own pantry finds nothing inspiring.  So, with these in mind, why on earth would I ever brag about such simple fare as a cheap can of tuna fish, cheese and an apple?

Let me tell you, sometime ambiance and attitude are EVERYTHING!

My story is not a solitary one.  There is definitely some precedence for this.

A classic Japanese tale opens on a certain man as he flees across an open field, in close pursuit by a hungry tiger.  Running to the edge of a high cliff, our protagonist is faced with the option of attempting a life-defying scramble down the sheer face of the drop, or becoming a delightful snack for the carnivores beast.  Grabbing a conveniently placed vine, he begins shimming over the precarious ledge.  Looking up, he sees the tiger furiously swiping just out of reach of his desired delicacy.

Thinking himself lucky, our hero ignores the frustrated roars of the carnivore and continues to lower himself to his salvation on the rocky crags and rocks far below.  His victory is short lived, however, when he first spies two other tigers waiting impatiently at the bottom.

A tiger above.  Two tigers below.  Not an ideal location, to say the least.  However, he has strength, and he has patience.  Nothing to do now but to wait out the tigers.

Growing in boredom, our protagonists starts entertaining himself by watching the frantic scurrying of a couple of small mice on the vine just above him.  He notices their adorable twitching noses as they sniff the vine, and their quick moving teeth as together they start nibbling away at the vine itself.

You ever have one of those days?

The tiger above proves to be a patient fellow, matched only by his two siblings below.  The mice work frantically just out of reach to separate our hero from his vine.  He knows that only precious seconds of his life remain.  If he is ever going to do something, now is the time to do it!  He looks over to his right and notices a strawberry growing nice and plumb in the warm summer sunshine.  Without hesitating, he quickly plucks the strawberry from its stem and pops it in his mouth…

…and it was the best strawberry he ever tasted!

the end

Ok, so maybe that story isn’t going to be in line for the next Disney classic. Yes, I as much as you am dying to find out just what happened to our hero.  Did he drop to his doom on the rocks?  Did he somehow make an alliance with the mice?  Did he go on to become the worlds most esteemed tiger tamer?  I know just about as much as you, I’m afraid to say.  Yet one thing we do know about the man who began to face the reality of an impending fate is this; he knew how to appreciate a moment!

My own story might not be as dramatic.  There are little to no tigers in it, to be clear, and absolutely no conspirator mice that sought to extract vengeance on me.  Yet I did experience a revelation of just what it takes to appreciate the journey…

…If for only a moment.

Moments shouldn’t be overlooked.  Moments can change our lives.

I was climbing an alpine peak.  I was under the pseudonym of my trail name, “Father Time”, a rather cheap joke combining my station as a ordained reverend and my rather persistence to keep accurate track of such things as pace, time, distance and altitude while hiking on the Appalachian Trail.  Yes, I know, a rather distracting trait for someone who was attempting to truly live in the moment by enjoying the beauty of the breathtaking White Mountains of New Hampshire.

The one reason I developed this rather annoying and distracting obsession is my ability to be disillusioned by the expectation of the trail.  The climb always, ALWAYS is a lot farther and a lot harder than I anticipate it to be.  I remember the time we began a final climb with the intent on camping at a site on a certain mountain peak.  After hours of steady uphill with my 40 pound pack pulling at my very soul, my brain told me the peak was just ahead.  Just in time too since it was getting dark fast.  Pretty soon we would only be able to navigate with our headlamps.  I was determined to get to the site before the need for that.  Quickening my pace, I neared exhaustion as my back ached, my feet throbbed and my will threatened surrender.  However, the peak was just around the next bend.  I felt it in my very core.  So with the last remains of my strength, I hurled myself forward into the clearing before me.  That’s when I saw it.

Above me… far, far above me stretched the mountain itself.  I wasn’t at the peak.  I had barely started the approach.  I had miscalculated everything.  Talk about soul crushing.

So I started to develop habits to insure that never happened again. As I started getting skills and tools to keep that in check, I noticed an undesirable side effect taking over.  I was having a harder and harder time allowing myself to live in the moment, especially if the moment was challenging.  I was becoming so focused on the destination that I was neglecting to enjoy the journey.

The problem with learning to enjoy the journey is that often the journey is hard.  This is as true for the journey of life as it is for my hiking adventures.  Sometimes we have to deal with sickness, or disappointment or even death of someone we love.  Sometimes it’s not even about an event that makes it difficult.  Sometimes we just get stuck.

Right now as I write this, I’m stuck.  Right now as I write this I am a Children’s pastor without any children to pastor (except my own, of course).  I throw around the phrase “between churches” quite a bit, but let me be honest… right now I’m a Children’s Pastor that is desperately praying to find his tribe, his fit, his home.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m not in a bad place at all.  I’ve got my wonderful family and I’m getting an opportunity to spoil them a little.  I’ve got some of the best friends and mentors in my life that I get to spend time with every week.  I have time to read, and study, and write.  That alone is a treat that I can’t get enough of.   Yet, for those who know what they were made to do, any time spent not doing that, and not being with the team they do that with tends to lead someone to feel the same way I feel now.   Stuck!

Stuck really isn’t all that bad of a place to be.  For one, it is a place that each and every one of us will find ourselves at some time or other.  One only needs to read through the Psalms to hear the writer often lament about the distance between where he finds himself and the promises of God.  It will work in our heart trust in God in ways that only times like that can. It is definitely an important part of the journey!

Three things I’ve learned about being stuck.

1. Firstly, it’s that God knows that being stuck for too long becomes something that will bring destruction to our soul instead of life. This is reflected by the the writer of Proverbs when he says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12).

2. Secondly, that being said, our times in a stuck place always, always, always turns out to be longer than we think it might, will, and should be.  Let’s be honest, it can be an immense time of frustration and stress.  It can lead to a continual feeling of hopelessness and depression.  It’s not a safe, easy place to be.

3. You will learn things by being stuck that you will never learn in any other place!

As much as we wish we could learn everything we need from positive experiences, books or morality tales, there is just some growth that can only take place by a desperate reliance on a God that promises to never give up on us.  It’s the great equalizer for all of us who rely on the grace and blessings of God.  It shines a light of truth on our pride and reminds us that we are blessed and loved simply because we have a mighty Father that chose to bless and love us.  I love how Brennan Manning puts it in “Ragamuffin Gospel”,

“The Good News of the gospel of grace cries out: We are all, equally, privileged but unentitled beggars at the door of God’s mercy!” (Brennan Manning, “Ragamuffin Gospel”)

Such is the reality of this great journey to become a hero of God.  I often approach it all wrong.  I am too often comparing myself to people I really don’t know anything about.  This isn’t THEIR mountain to climb, this is MY mountain.  Who cares what their time is.  Good for them.  What they accomplish, however, isn’t what my life is about.   My life is me going to God and saying, “Ok, it’s a long hike.  It’s a path that I simply cannot do.  I’m just simply unqualified.  I know it.  They know it.  YOU know it.  And now that that is out of the way… what’s my next step?

“Let’s climb this mountain, Lord.”

Ok, so I’m not saying that we have to enjoy EVERY moment of the journey.  Some moments are just hard and rotten and stink like baby diapers.  I am saying that we need to be always looking out for the surprise moments that can meet us around any corner.  We also need to be longing for those unique moments of victory that come to remind us why we are traveling down this road in the first place.  It’s those moments that change everything!

I knew that days climb would be a tough one for me.  As a section hiker of the Appalachian trail I and my traveling buddies have a unique perspective of a lifetime approach to slowly completing the trail.  For one thing, I know at the pace I’m going, I’ll have to live well into my hundreds in order to finally complete it!  The downside is that by the time my legs and back remember what it takes to get on board to the challenge, the hike for that year is already over.

So we began up Mount Lafayette towards the Franconia Ridge.  My pack was as heavy as ever and my legs and shortness of breath soon reminded me that too much of my life is spent at my desk and on my couch.  I learned from my past mistake of misjudging the trail in length and challenge, but that didn’t make the climb any easier.

Step after step, up we went.  First wind turned into second wind and then third wind was soon spent.  Still the trail went ever upward.  Thru-hikers passed by me like I was standing still.  Ok, I get it.  No harm to my pride there.  They were trail hardened.  They were tough.  It was the 6 year olds and their small dogs that really hurt my feeling as they bounded up the rock face in front of me.  No stress.  This was my mountain.  I had to face it for myself.  That was challenge enough.

I began to believe the mountain would never end.  I began to believe that I had been born on that mountain trail and I would live a long life and then die an old man still climbing up and up and up.  It would never end.  It was eternal.  I was stuck in an endless loop of climbing ever skyward.

Only, it did end.

Eventually I took those last few steps to the peak.  There were no roads up there.  The only way up was to climb. The view was breathtaking.  The clouds floated all around us and we could see for days.  The only people up there were ones that climbed the mountain step by step.  Sure, many of them had a much easier time than I did, but all of us were here in this same place, digging on this same amazing view.

We sat to eat lunch.  I opened my can of spicy tuna fish, cut a slice of my jalapeño cheese and pulled out the apple I had insisted on adding extra weight to my pack.  The wind was loud and whistling all around us.  We snuggled in our sweaters in a cleft of the rock to cut the chill.  That’s when we heard a soft, melodious sound dancing around the wind.  It was singing.  We looked over the edge, to a landing on the side of the peak.  There were a group of nuns, a priest and members of their congregation who had made the climb.   They were singing their liturgy in the most beautiful harmony I’ve heard.  I kid you not.  Nuns singing on a mountain-top!   We sat back to eat, listening to the sound of the angels as we looked off into the bright, beautiful horizon.  Every bit of the hard-fought journey was forgotten for that moment.

I didn’t worry about how unqualified I was.

I didn’t stress about the hundreds of miles left in front of me.

I didn’t freak out about the steep climb down I had yet to make.

Father Time simply sat there and enjoyed a little slice of heaven eating what I, to this day swear was the best meal I’ve ever eaten.

Here’s the interesting thing though.  I hate tuna fish.  I HATE it.  I actually tried an experiment a few weeks later where I ate the same meal during a lunch break.  The apple was fine, the cheese was tasty, but the tuna was repulsive.  I couldn’t even finish it.  I threw most of it away.

It wasn’t the food that made it so enjoyable, it was the fact that I was learning how to dig the journey.  Being stuck is a challenge, but it’s not a fate.  It requires patience and a reliance of God, but just like “Mountain Top Kevin” quickly forgot the journey when the view took his breath away, “Stuck Kevin” will one day look back and wonder why I stressed quite so much during this unique time.

The same can be said of all of us as we travel on this hero journey…