You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Psalm 16:11
Yup, that’s me. It’s August of 2011, and I’m sitting in my lean-to at Katahdin Stream Campground at Baxter State Park, Maine. Early in the morning, 3:30 am, I launched a new beginning! Section hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT)!! =)
You would have thought I was a kid at Christmas again. My mind was full of excitement, wonder, anticipation, adventure and yes, some apprehension. I knew the trail had a price tag she would extract from me mentally and physically if I wanted to tread upon her narrow multifaceted back from Maine to Georgia.
Planning and launching any new beginning in our life generally fills us with both anticipation and dread. We weigh the positives as well as the negatives knowing we live in a broken world and among broken people so there are never only positives.
Well, that proved true before I even set one foot on the AT. The AT wanted a pound of my mind before she ever felt the pound of my first grimy boot upon her 2,100 plus mile back.
After work at 7:40 pm I left for Maine cutting cross-lots through Canada from western New York. Driving through the wee hours of the morning I arrived at Stratton, Maine at 6:50 am. I was being shuttled to Katahdin Campground from there and hiking back to my car. I planned the time of my arrival so after my shuttle, I would have time to summit Katahdin, the northern terminus of the AT, that same day. Afterward, I would sleep at the lean-to I had reserved at the campground continuing my new adventure towards Springer Mountain in the morning.
Now, the adventure was finally about to begin!! Or so I thought… Shortly after arriving, I discovered my shuttle driver had misplaced my reservation! =0
After hours of trying to work out a plan and her shuttling other hikers she also had agreements with, she eventually took me about halfway to the campground. From there she had secured another driver to take me the rest of the way.
By the time I arrived, it was midafternoon, past the cutoff time one was allowed to summit Katahdin. No big surprise at that point. =(
I was tired and more than a little disappointed. I was working hard to make the best of it, but in my mind, I was struggling to keep a good attitude.
I only had the lean-to for one night, tonight. So now I had to summit Katahdin in the morning AND hike all the way out of the park as they did not allow stealth camping in Baxter Park. That means a 20 plus mile day. A very tough first day on the AT.
That was a BIG down payment the trail demanded of me, and it was only a small beginning of the titanic personal cost the AT would eventually inflict upon me and extract from me.
This is why many of those who set out to make hiking the AT a new beginning in their life do not pursue it to the end. At some point the cost becomes too much, and that is OK. We have all come to this point many times in our lifetime. We all have limits as to what we are willing to sacrifice for in almost every area of life. We will for good reason sacrifice more in some areas than we will in others. In a few areas, we will literally sacrifice anything and everything. It is a wise person who knows when they have reached their limit in areas that they are not required to sacrifice everything. Kudos to all who even exercise the courage to even try out a new beginning such as the AT! No questions or regrets with trying. Only answers and redirection.
The point I am trying to make is, the level of adventure on and off the trail that we desire to have in our life, is dependent upon the level of our willingness to expect and pay the costs that are required to pursue such new beginnings.
God tells us in Ecclesiastes 9:10–11 that, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no (earthly) activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol (the holding place of the dead) where you are going, (we are all going to one day enter eternity). I again saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise nor wealth to the discerning nor favor to men of ability; for time and chance overtake them all.” (NASB95) This broken world wails indiscriminately on all of us for treading upon its back. Nobody is exempt. No one has an edge on success concerning new beginnings. Everyone has to pay the piper.
So God tells us not to be afraid to plan and execute new beginnings because we think the world is out to get us. It is not, it is just broken. It does not function perfectly like God initially created it. We broke it when our human representatives, Adam and Eve sinned. As we hear and say on the trail, “It is what it is.” God says, “Go for it, despite its and ones personal brokenness! It is what it is. Get as much out of life as you can while you can!” Obviously, God is telling us that life still has a lot to offer.
People forgetting our reservations, having to climb one of the toughest mountains on the AT and complete 20 plus miles to boot, overtakes us all from time to time. God says, “It is up to you if you want to pay the price or not, but you are not going through anything anyone else doesn’t have to go through! No rain, no pain, no Maine!”
Playing it as safely as possible in life may allow you and I to pay a little less of the cost a life in pursuit of new beginnings would require. But when you and I stand on the threshold of death and eternity, do we really want to look back at our life and say “I lived life as passively and safely as possible? I made it my aim to not chance hardly anything new in order to pay as small a personal cost as possible?”
God’s counsel is “Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things.” Ecclesiastes 11:9 (NASB95)
But, God doesn’t encourage a passive and safe lifestyle either! Quite the opposite! He tells us to squeeze everything we can out of it! To get up and walk off the knocks that will come from time to time! The only warning He gives us is to make sure our new beginnings aren’t something sinful as He will not bless us in those ventures but will actually add to their in cost.
When I finished the AT in 2019, the cost I mentioned above was VERY small in comparison to some of the other prices tags the AT extracted from me along the way. But at the same time, I can honestly say that whenever I look back on that new beginning, I am filled with incredible memories and gratitude. Yes, I had plenty of terrible times and a few downright deplorable times, but all in all, it has been one of the greatest new beginnings of my entire life. One I will NEVER forget and ALWAYS thank the Lord for despite all of the mental and physical costs. The AT asked A LOT from me, but she gave me A WHOLE LOT more in return!
Maybe we could get a pack of garden seeds and place a sticky note on it. On the sticky note we could list some new beginnings we would like to do a little research on. Work through the possibilities, pragmatics, positives and negatives. From there, determine if we would like to sow any of them into our lives and reap the harvest they offer. Despite the hard work of tilling the soil and weeding that will be required along the way before the harvest. Remember, God says you have as much chance as anyone else at pulling it off! Let’s go get that next Mt. Katahdin!
Faith Aids 