Further along the trail

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”

Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

A week ago Tuesday marked the 22nd anniversary of the beginning of our ministry in Chetek and to celebrate the day I drove to the Taylor County woods northeast of Rib Lake and hiked along the Ice Age Trail for the afternoon. I was in sore need of alone time and went there deliberately in hopes of hearing a "word" from God. For the past six years, the fall has become a busy time for me as I have juggled my responsibilities of both pastor and coach of Chetek-Weyerhaeuser High School's Cross Country team. A lot of times at this turn of the year it feels like I pastor just to pay my way as CC coach and this fall has been no exception. So, on Monday night I cancelled next day's practice and on Tuesday morning I drove the two hours over to eastern Taylor County.

The way we were in the fall of 1991

It was a glorious day to be out on the IAT. With temperatures heading to the mid-70s and the leaves at or near peak, the hike promised to be invigorating to all the senses. More importantly, I needed the solitude of the trail and for God to speak to me. I didn't want the day to pass without the attempt to mark it with prayer and reflection. And so as I shouldered my day pack and headed down the path I began with a simple prayer, "Father, do you have anything you want to say to me?"

As I passed under the green canopy of hardwoods mottled with gold and red, I reflected on.twenty-two years of ministry: the first days, Ultra high frequency (Uhf), learning to preach, when we were CFGT, Focus, becoming Refuge, ministry at the Justice Center and other happenings along the way. For all of it I find myself so grateful to be here, to be given an opportunity to "work out my salvation with fear and trembling", to work my craft and grow and develop as a disciple of Jesus Christ. Every pastor needs people to care for and nurture, every preacher needs a congregation to listen to him and I've been fortunate over the past two decades or so to be given that. 

Along the hike there were moments when my train of thought would detour and I would start to reflect on my deficiencies, inadequacies and mistakes I've made over that span of time. Clearly, other men - and for that matter, other women - could have done it better than me. But at those times I had to forcibly interrupt that flow of disparaging reflection and get myself back to gratitude. Certainly God didn't bring me to the woods to tell me that I sucked.

Before we moved to Chetek, we were living in southern Wisconsin for a season where we hoped to plant a church in a community there. I was 26 years old and Linda and I had just become parents a few months before when we moved to town. It was a two-year experiment of blood, sweat and tears that ultimately led to disappointment. In the fall of 1990 we moved into my in-laws' cabin north of Madison in what we believed at the time to be only a temporary arrangement. But that's not how it played out. In fact, it was the beginning of maybe the darkest ten months in my life - at least thus far. Since 1982 it had been my ambition and perceived calling to be a pastor. Over the next eight years I had attended and graduated from Bible college, completed my internship at the large congregation that had nurtured me, and, after getting married, returned to school for more education. Along the way I had helped a couple of my friends plant fellowships of their own and picked up preaching gigs now and then. But by the fall of 1990 I was no closer to "breaking in" to ministry than I had ever been. During that fall of 1990 and winter of 1991 I interviewed at a couple of fellowships to no avail and then things dried up. No one was looking and no one was interested in taking on a guy with little or no experience.

I was working full-time nights and in retrospect that contributed to the darkness of that season in my life. I was tired all the time and that weariness made me vulnerable to a thought that was planted like a bad seed in my mind: that somehow or other I had "missed" my calling, that all those teachers at the Bible college I had attended and all the pastors who had encouraged me to pursue ministry along the way had, in fact, lied to me, had only said those things just to profit from the tuition money that they got off a chump like me. That's not a logical sequence of thought nor is it fair to those who were my instructors but eight years into my quest to be a pastor I was no closer to getting there. Some days it was just easier to dwell on the disappointment I was feeling at the way my life was unfolding. We lived an hour from where I worked and when you're tired that's a long time to try and fight off dark thoughts like these. But to have to do that twice a day was just wearing me down. I recall one drive to work being so angry that I just banged away at the steering wheel while I cried bitter tears to a God whom I felt had forgotten where and who I was and who had better things to do than listen to me beg Him for an opportunity to serve Him anywhere.

At the time I was working as the night supervisor of about 40 employees of a large nursing facility that oversaw the personal care of 300 disabled adults and children. I was grateful for the job in that it paid the bills but it obviously wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. One night on my rounds, I had a conversation with Dale, one of the crew I oversaw. He had been a pastor but had decided to leave pulpit ministry and open a Christian book-store in the town where this nursing facility was. Knowing my aspirations for ministry from time to time he would ask how the pursuit was going. That night I must have opened up the vault a bit more than usual for Dale gently admonished me, reminding me that the Lord knew where I was and if he had need of me He would come looking for me. Whether he knew it or not, his words were light and the curative to the darkness that was infecting my soul.

That season of feeling lost eventually ended and in time the Lord did have an assignment for me. And now look where I'm at all these years later. I've been blessed to pastor the same fellowship for over two decades in a small community that I now consider home and have experienced the joys and (at times) the sorrow that goes with the territory. As a good friend of mine once said to me: "You have a wife and kids who love you, a house of  your own and a church to work out your calling. What more could you ask for?" (I guess "a cabin in the woods" is out of the question?)

My hike along the Ice Age Trail lasted all afternoon. I had no "burning bush" moment, no Elijah-in-the-cave-beneath-Mt.-Horeb-still-small-voice incident. But something did happen that gave me something to chew on. The IAT is a 1,000-mile trail that snakes through Wisconsin over all kinds of terrain and accesses many kinds of trails - ski, ATV, road and foot-travel only paths - along the way. Having hiked about an eighth of it, I can tell you that in some parts if you've seen a mile of it you've seen it all - kames and kettles, ice-walled lake plains and, especially, eskers. Every 100 feet or so, a yellow blaze attached to a tree or post reminds you that you're heading the right way. For myself, after awhile a certain monotony can set in as I  hike mile after mile after mile. Because the trail runs along all kinds of other trails, it's easier than one would guess to get lost, to miss a turn and be still in the woods but not on the path. On that Tuesday afternoon it happened to me twice. The first time, I had proceeded a couple of hundred feet before recognizing that I had not seen a yellow blaze in awhile. I backtracked only to discover that while I was looking to my left I had missed a blaze with an arrow that was pointing right. The second time I noticed I was going in the wrong direction I actually was walking a section wide enough for cars to pass in opposite directions. Somehow it didn't feel right. And so I walked back down the hill to where the previous marker was and slowly turned clockwise until I noticed a little yellow blaze that had been partially covered by yellow leaves with an arrow pointing north.

The juxtaposition of the wide lane and the narrow path was serendipitous, a Biblical lesson come to life. It made me think of Jesus' words:
 “Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention." (Matthew 7:13-14, Msg)
The lesson I took to heart was that in this journey with Jesus vigilance is required. I can never get to a place in ministry when I say, in so many words, "I got this figured out. A little preaching, a little prayer meeting, a little board meeting, some visitation and public appearances is the sure-fire equation for job security."  In the monotony of living my daily, pedestrian life I can both lose my way - and my soul. Lord, spare me from both ends! The goal of my ministry is not just to notch years of consecutive service in one place and thus win a prize but to be found faithful and - with a wave to Thoreau - to be found doing so deliberately, sucking the marrow out of the life I have been given whether it amounts to a hill of beans or something a little bigger. Either way, I pray to stay vigilant as I hike the trail he has laid down for me.

Further along the trail