Hitting the Wall

When the Journey Seems to have too many Roadblocks

Recently my daughter and a few of my close friends and I went on a backpacking trip to a place called Minaret Lake in the High Sierra.  I delight in the back country.  The sky is bluer, the water is too, and I just so much enjoy purple lupine, bright red Indian Paintbrush and other wild flowers in creek-watered meadows.  I think my favorite part, though, are the mountains. Thousands of years ago the glaciers that covered the Sierra receded leaving behind tremendous, rugged peaks that surround beautiful, crystal-clear lakes full of multi-colored Brook Trout!  As we sat at our campsite next to the lake and looked across the water we could see these towering peaks like sky scrapers standing guard over the lake.  From the topo map we calculated that these peaks were over 1000 feet straight up!  Early in the morning when the water of the lake is still and mirror-like you can see the beautiful reflection of the mountains.  A jumping trout sends out circles of disturbance from the center of the lake just outside the reach of my fishing rod’s cast.  The whole scene causes spontaneous worship and adoration of my Creator. 

 But these minarets don’t look like “normal” mountains with gentle slopes.  These peaks are carved into grotesque shapes that look like the teeth of an angry giant: teeth mostly worn away by grinding and chewing, leaving large gaps in between.  Clyde Minaret is the most stark peak.  It steeply slopes to a point and it is bent somewhat about half way up.  Clyde Minaret has a bright red iron rich deposit that looks like a blood stain from some past meal.  These mountains reminded me of something I would more likely see in a Dr. Seuss book than in a natural setting.
One of the minarets is shaped like a crooked chimney.  At the foot of these mountains is a steep pile of scree.  This is an accumulation of rock left over from the glacier carving.  And scree is not very inviting to hikers! The whole thing looks like a pile of rock vomit coming out of the mouth of the angry tooth-decayed giant.   But in a weird way this imposing view is all beautiful.

Our itinerary this year was to go to Minaret Lake by a path which is an 8 mile spur off of the John Muir Trail in the Ansel Adams Wilderness.  The trail to the lake ends in a sort of bowl that holds the lake.  If you look on the map, and even as we arrived at the lake, it appears to be a dead end trail.  It looks like the lake is surrounded by mountains and cliffs except for the outlet end of the lake where the trail is allowed to enter the bowl by blister forming switchbacks and where water cascades down rock falls.  But I had researched that many people had gone up into those rugged mountains to another lake, up above Minaret lake, to water called Cecile lake, that was currently invisible from where we stood.  From Cecile Lake people often hike down to Iceberg lake then back over to another trail that would lead out of the mountains completing a twenty mile loop. This trail that many had taken before us is considered a “cross country” trail since it is not on the map.  I asked the ranger about this route at our trail head and she remarked, “I did it with my dog.  We made it, but you know you could kill yourself on that trail.” Comforting!

On our second day we decided to find our way up to Cecile Lake.  We ambled awkwardly over the scree that was deposited at about a 45 degree angle.  People we had talked to told us to “keep to the right.”  But a quarter mile ahead and to the right was abut a 30 foot wall.  How were we to get over that? 

When we got to the end of the pile of rocks we stood at the base of the wall wondering what to do next.  We decided to fan out and look for ways to ascend the wall.  We had no ropes and no technical expertise to use  ropes anyway.  We were also tired from the relentless climb over boulders.  All the while we would look up and see those menacing teeth of the giant.  Was that a growl I heard, or is it approaching thunder?

One of the younger members of our group tried several crevices in the cliff that looked like places to get a safe foot hold, but all of those ended in ledges we could not reach or just sheer vertical rock.  We had run into a wall we could not seem to scale.

It crosses my mind as I reflect on this experience about how many times in life I have “hit the wall”.  I remember being towards the end of my graduate studies in chemistry knowing I did not have the smarts nor the energy to keep on going to the finish.  I think of being in the interview waiting room sizing up the competition for the job and thinking of how I am out-ranked.  I also sadly think of sins in my life that I have tried to conquer feeling so defeated by the enemy.  Many of my close friends are at the wall now.  Two of my friends have a debilitating disease, robbing them of the ability to work at all, with no cure in sight.  Others have paralyzing tension between them and their children.  A few friends have not received a paycheck in over a year.  The wall.  It seems like there is just no way. So many times I have felt that I am just not equipped to scale the wall of parenting; I am inadequate as a husband, or incompetent as a teacher or a failure as a follower of Jesus. 

Then one of my companion hikers said, “Look at that stack of rocks! I bet it’s a trail marker.”  He quickly went up to the unnatural pile of 3 stones and found another marker a few yards further.  The markers led directly to the bottom of the sheerest part of the cliff.  But as he approached the wall what seemed to be a smooth face all the way up to the top appeared to have a ledge wide enough to walk on. At a distance the ledge just blended into the cliff, but as we neared, it came into view.  It was really amazing.  The ledge was a diagonal walkway that led straight to the top.   It was like a skilled carpenter had gone before and built a ramp just for hikers to make it up the 30 or so feet.   Walking up the face of the insurmountable cliff was really easy and very quick.  Others had gone this way before, and kindly left us a marker.  I think it was immediately obvious to all of us that this had spiritual meaning.

Some of you, my dear friends, are approaching what seems like an unscalable wall in your life.  Perhaps you are already at its base staring hopelessly straight up at impossibility.  Is it illness? Are you about to succumb to financial ruin?  Are you just out of energy, motivation or just feel like a plain failure?  It could be there is a relationship in your life that is filled with unsolvable conflict.  Maybe you just look at the state of the world and are very discouraged.  I want to beg you to do a couple of things before you give up.  First look hard for the ledge.  Seek the way out.  It will be there. It might be just slightly hidden from your view.  Keep prayerfully seeking one last time with all of your might.

God provides a path.  He provided it for the Israelites.  I think the parting of the Red Sea is God’s favorite story.  He reminds us of it so often in Scripture.  God provided a means for David to conquer the snarling, anger-spewing, bloody-toothed giant.  God provided a way for Daniel out of the Lion’s den.  These are not just pretty bed-time stories.  I think God likes to let his children get in too deep sometimes.  He lets us get our backs up to an unscalable wall so that he can provide a way out. In this way He gets the glory.  1 Corinthians 10:13 talks about God providing a way of escape out of “temptation”.  The Greek word used for temptation is peirasmos which can also be translated “trial” or “test”.  God will provide a trail through your trial!  It probably won’t be the way you expected, and you may not get what you wanted, but everything will turn out fine.  And I mean fine according to God’s standards! 

Secondly, people have traveled this path before.  “Friends” have gone before us and experienced the same thing.  Best of all they have left trail markers directing us to the path!  I would like to introduce you to some of the best trail markers I have ever found.  One of my favorites is The Life of George Mueller.  Here was a man whose back was almost always against the wall, and he, with God, performed miracle after miracle.  Another is Letters of a Modern Mystic by Frank Laubach.  This man suffered much loss and God gave Frank Himself.  Others markers are John Woolman, George Fox, John Bunyon, Francios Fenelon, Thomas a Kempis, or Andrew Murray.  They lived lives that could only be explained by a dependence on the Power of God. Read them, keep them by your bedside to read when you feel lost on the trail. The number of “trail markers” gets bigger and bigger.  This is not a trivial thing. When you get close to these people you will realize that their lives are trail markers that will lead you and me right up to the top of that impossible cliff. You will soon learn that many have left behind an unnatural pile of rocks that lead to the path.

And what is that path you ask?  Is it healing?  Will the giant you are facing go away?  Perhaps, but healing or problem solving is not the path I am talking about.  The path is Jesus Himself!  That is why we should not fear the wall at all, because the presence of a cliff probably means Jesus is very nearby.  He is the way.  And we get to walk with Him, and it is so sweet!

Will you always remind me of this?

That night up in the Sierras, under the extremely bright Milky Way, I just laid in my sleeping bag and wept.  I thought of all of those “walls” I had hit in life, staring at the face of an angry, vomit-spewing giant, seeing my reflection in his eyes.  And yet God has always, always given me a trail right into midst of that giant and demonstrated that His path is unshakeable.