Since moving to Denver, we have done more hiking in the last two months than we have in nine years. I have been blessed to have God reveal to me a few faith lessons that I needed to hear that I wanted to share with you from our hiking adventures. So, on our first hiking adventure, we were hiking in Minturn, CO. It was the whole family, me, my husband, our seven year old son, and our four year old daughter. At the beginning of the hike the pathway in the foothills was smooth and wide. As we made our way up the terrain it became narrow and more difficult to navigate. There were exposed roots, and rocks along the path. You had to look where you placed each foot. My son called out for me to look at something, so I raised my head. I immediately tripped. Faith lesson #1: God was right there with me and seemed to be saying, “See. As soon as you take your eyes off of Jesus you’ll trip.”

On one of our next adventures, we had gone to Dinosaur Ridge near Colorado Springs, CO. It was an awesome five mile hike. In the beginning, you go up a zig zag pathway to reach the top ridge of the mountain. Then you walk all along the top ridge to the other side where you descend. There are some amazing views from the top ridge. Let me just mention that there are fossils in the park, and even actual dinosaur prints on the side of the mountain. You can stand four feet from the dinosaur prints. It is really amazing. Needless to say, our seven year old son turns geologist on us for the day. About every two feet he picks up a rock and claims it to be a fossil of some kind. This is cute and fun for about a minute, but not much longer for daddy. You see my husband sees hiking from the exercise standpoint. Go as fast as you can, work up a good sweat, burn calories, goal accomplished, go home. After a few hours of me and my son lagging behind, daddy continues to coach us along into his hiking philosophy. Our four year old daughter isn’t lagging behind because she is riding on daddy’s shoulders now, and he is totally into the extra 40 pounds for an exercise bonanza.

After a while, our son says to daddy, “You know, our teacher told us to slow down and look around.” Our geologist is now a philosopher. But he made a good point. Believe it or not, soon thereafter daddy was still ahead of us, but called for us to hurry and come see what he found. It was this plant with these peculiar, twirly, fun things on them (the blog picture). We had never seen this kind of plant before. We still don’t know what it was, but loved it!

That is faith lesson #2, slow down to enjoy the walk. We are so busy in our lives that we pass up seeing the amazing beauty of what God created that causes us to pause and reflect on His amazing love for us to create such beauty for our eyes to behold! One cannot help but be inspired by the artist in God!

So, another day we went on a hike at Garden of the Gods. During our climb we were encouraging our four year along. She likes to stop every three minutes for a drink. Not because she is thirsty, but because she can get us to stop for a break. She always holds our hands as we hike. She hasn’t quit developed the hiking confidence for navigating the tougher terrain with rocks and roots. We had finally climbed to a top peak area and were sitting enjoying the views. As we sat, our daughter decided to practice climbing the area in front of us. So, up and down she climbed as she gained confidence in her hiking abilities. We finally decide to descend and head home. As we take off, I take her hand. She pulls her hand back and proclaims, “I can do it myself.” This slows us down (to husband’s chagrin). So, daddy and son take off down the slopes as we girls navigate our way behind them. Kendall is feeling bold and confident. She is jumping down the natural steps the earth has made with rocks and roots. I’m biting my lip. I can see the fall coming. There it is. Nothing major, but a few scratches on the legs that I kiss. Back to holding my hand, we descend the trail.

Faith Lesson #3: don’t become so confident in our faith walk that we think we can do this all alone. We need to hold onto Jesus’ hand at every moment of every day. Just when we think we are mature in our faith walk and can handle it, the enemy sweeps in to have us fall from grace into sin.

Dear friends, if I may leave us with this two Scripture treasures on our faith walk: Proverbs 4:25-27 Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil. Hebrews 12:1-2 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.