Find the Silence

An excerpt from “Way of the Victorious”

You are going somewhere. 

My first time in the Sierra Nevada in California was in October and on my own in an 87 Honda Accord with 275,000 miles clocked on the odometer. I needed to get away. I was not an avid hiker, and I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. I just drove up and up and up until I came to the end of a mountain road in Kings Canyon National Park. There was no gate and there were no park  rangers, so I found a campsite in what seemed suitable (there wasn’t another living soul there so I got the pick of the litter). I settled in with my cheap Coleman tent, an ax, a knife, and some cans of chili and a pound of beef for 3 days of retreat. On a misty morning I grabbed my backpack I had picked up at an army/navy store on the 6 hour drive up, and just started walking. 

In reality, I was broken. I didn’t know I was broken, I just knew I needed something different, something quiet and “away”. I found what looked to be a trailhead and pointed to a spot on the map that seemed to be the place, Eagle lake. 

In the lower river valleys at that time of year the colors are extraordinary. The first few miles of the hike curved along a river surrounded by vibrant fall colors; and as far as I could tell, I was the only one taking in the view. Luckily, the trail was well marked for a novice like myself. The hike climbed and switched back over a few thousand vertical feet. The last part of the trail is what looked like a wall of granite with nothing marking the trail but piles of stones left by hikers that had gone before. I was out of breath coming from sea level to almost 11,000 feet, but I was in love with this place. I finally finished this hike, which took more than half the day on this occasion. 

I did not know why in this case I was climbing, or the particular reason I had come. It was simply a longing, so I went with it. When I finally came to the top of the trail, I saw a lake surrounded by sheer granite cliffs dusted with the first snows of an early mountain winter. Then I knew. I knew why I was there. It was so quiet, my ears started to ring. I tried to slow my breath only because I felt like my Clydesdale snorting was ruining the peace of that place. It was there and then that my path really began. God spoke to me, not so much in words or even in clear direction, he simply showed me I had come to the right place and to keep going. To keep climbing. To keep searching out silence so that I could hear. Away from the noise and the clutter of even my own mind. I could feel all my brokenness, who I truly was bubbled to the surface when I shut out the world and found what the Irish call a “thin place”. It seemed as if heaven had passed through a door and Jesus was taking counsel with me, had even been waiting for me in this place. My heart leapt for joy at the meeting, as much as I knew I needed mending. Since this day, I have not looked back. Through trial and error, through pain and grit, through victory and too many failures to count, I knew how to get back on the path. 

Since then, I have taken that silence with me everywhere I go. The silence amongst the noise where God can be heard, where I can give him my full attention. 

I want to show you how to do this. How to be with Him. Jesus says he is the way, and truly, Jesus himself is the path. Something I have consistently said to the men I disciple is “Jesus is the wilderness, we are the trail guides”. Nobody comes to see the trail guide, they come to find Jesus, and if we can find the path, we can show others the way. 

The world and sadly the church fall into the same trap. Looking for a path, looking for a way, looking for a destiny and identity, but trying to find it in themselves. This is the great fallacy of our generation that has been in many cases aided by the church itself. A self-focused and self-soothing therapeutic deism that isn't Christianity or discipleship at all. But an aimless search to “find ourselves” when in reality, we can find nothing until we find the true path, Jesus himself. No identity, no purpose, no grand vision, and no trendy personality test (I’m looking at you enneagram) can save your soul or tell you who you are. In fact, you can gain the whole world, and lose the only thing of any real value.