For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?
1 Corinthians 4:7 (NIV)
There is a saying on the Appalachian Trail (AT) that hikers often quote. Here it is: “Hike your own hike.”
What they are saying is you have to hike the AT the way you want to hike it, not the way someone else may desire you to hike.
Some of the reasons this is some of the best AT advice you will ever receive is:
The AT is loaded with glorious moments, but it is also riddled with enormous challenges, some of which are titanic even.
In a short period of time, you can find yourself hiking in all four seasons of weather, especially in the White Mountains of Maine. Your gear is not only typically tailored for one season, but you have as little of it as possible.
You will encounter rainy periods that can last over a week and/or rain that can add up to several inches in a short time. This turns the trail you walk on into a creek bed you wade through.
In the Great Smoky Mountains and Whites in Maine, you can find yourself hiking through snow in soaked trail runners or summer boots, which will be frozen solid in the morning if you do not sleep with them.
The summer heat reaches the 90’s at times even in the mountains, and many times in the valleys. Then of course you have to add in the humidity factor.
The AT is almost 2,200 miles long with an elevation gain and loss of about 515,000 from one end to the other. (For us older folks, going down can be harder than going up when it is long and steep.)
These are just a few challenges we all encounter on the AT. Can you see how someone pressuring or shaming us to try to hike their hike instead of ours could easily end in disaster, relationally and pragmatically?! ☹
There are only so many miles we are comfortable to travel in a day. The number and durations of our rest times will be different. The number of consecutive days we like to hike before we take a day or two off will be different; and the list goes on.
Now you may be wondering how does anyone hike with friends then, especially if they are significantly different?
Good question. The simple answer is, we still “Hike our own hike.” 😊
We accomplish this several ways, for example: we all agree where to end our day, then everyone starts when they want and hikes the day through the way they want. Others will hike on their own part of the day and then hike the rest together deciding along the way where to stop. Others make agreeable compromises and hike most of the time together. Still others will look for fellow hikers with similar goals and abilities. So you see, it can be done with only one critical caveat, everyone still “hikes their own hike.”
I selected the picture because it is not your typical cairn. Most of them have stones stacked neatly and flatly, one on top of the another. This one is definitely atypical. Most of its stones are at precarious angles, yet, there it stands proud, strong and true, confident, enjoying the New Hampshire sunshine and happily greeting the hikers as they pass by. (Can you not picture this cairn looking down at you with a special twinkle in its eye and broad smile, knowing it is different and relishing in its uniqueness?)
God makes all of us different in a myriad of ways. The best way for us to enjoy ourselves is to embrace who God has made us. The best way for others to enjoy us is for them to accept us for who we are and not who they want us to be or become.
We are all made in God’s image concerning our mutual accredited value and personal self-awareness, but wow, does God ever get creative after that! 😊
The majority of ATers are great at accepting everyone for who they are and working together to accomplish common goals along the journey. They do this for everyone, not just the friends they hike with. Everyone is there with the bare necessities on their back and with the same goal on their mind. You do not even keep your own name! Everyone gets a trail name. ATers love this community and commonality. Nobody has anything to prove or to flaunt. It is one of the things we miss most when we get off the trail.
As 1 Corinthians 4:7 says, it is God who has made us and He has been very artistic in His precious and original designs, “US.” We ought not to be prideful or embarrassed by who God has made us. We all only have the qualities that God has provided us. Different qualities do not make anyone better or worse, they just make us different. Our purpose and worth does not come through having or exploiting these qualities, it comes through Christ and by serving one another through them.
Listen to God’s wonderful and self-effacing words to us in Colossians 2:8–10, 8 Be careful that nobody spoils your faith through intellectualism or high-sounding nonsense. Such stuff is at best founded on men’s ideas of the nature of the world and disregards Christ!
9-10 Yet it is in him [Christ] that God gives a full and complete expression of himself (within the physical limits that he set himself in Christ). Moreover, your own completeness is only realized in him, who is the authority over all authorities, and the supreme power over all powers. (PHILLIPS)
It is what we do with and say about God’s gift of “us” that affects our life and the lives of those around us. On the AT we elect to use “us,” who God has made us, for the good of all along the trail. It is a glorious authentic, empirical taste of what God wants us to enjoy every day of our lives. It does not have to end when we get off the AT. It should not even begin there. It should be something we just carry on the trail from our normal daily life. God even expects it in the gospel believer’s life.
Romans 12:17–18, 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. (ESV)
Luke 13:30, And note this: Some who seem least important now will be the greatest then, and some who are the greatest now will be least important then.” (NLT)
God is not saying that we should condone that which is truly wrong here in order to enjoy one another. He is saying not to repay an evil deed with another evil deed. Recognize what it is, evil, sinful, but do not copy it. We are to practice and promote as much good as possible in respect for Christ and on behalf of those around us.
The next time we see something standing at some crazy angle, take the time to admit the precarious angles God has built into our life and the lives of others that make us all unique. I hope when we do, we can smile inside and agree that we certainly are a peculiar people. May you and I stand strong and true, confidently enjoying being “us” and take time to enjoy the “us” in others as we journey along this trail of life together. Let us exhibit the same enthusiasm the ATers have, mixing our peculiarities together and seeing what great adventures we can accomplish together.
Faith Aids 