GOLD in the CLOUDS : Finding the Way

Have you ever hiked on a trail in the woods when you know the destination is a mountain summit, yet the trail twists and turns with switchbacks or re-routes and suddenly you don't see the trail blazes on the tree??

That's happened to me several times in the last few years. The Adirondacks was hard hit by Hurricane Irene in 2011 and I have seen some devastating results from that storm that blew in that late summer. Lots of blowdown. Lots of trails and bridges over creeks re-routed and re-built.

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and a friend of ours and I were hiking a tall mountain that had some re-routes. And blazes were few and far between. My husband was leading that day and I'm rather glad he was. He set a good pace when the trail was flat (just towards the beginning) and slowed down as the trail became more obscure and steep. In fact, some of it was total rock scrambles. If you don't have experience on these kinds of trails, it can be difficult as you climb, to determine which way to go. This climb came back to my mind this week as I read my morning devotions. I was in Ezra 8 when the second part of verse 22 jumped out at me:

and then the Scripture goes on to say:

"so we fasted and entreated our God for this, and He answered our prayer." ~Ezra 8:23~

The devotional in my Bible that went along with these Scriptures stated that it is so easy to say that God is in control of our lives when we are on that "mountain-top" experience. It is sometimes so much harder for us when we are facing difficult paths. Yet for those of us who cling to God, cry out His name and grasp a hold of him through prayer, we can remain at peace knowing He is in control.

It is our job as Believers to pray and humble our selves to seek His Face and ask Him to show us His plans and purposes. To ask Him to show us the way.

I actually became a bit nervous on this trail at one point because of how steep it was and how hot and humid the weather was. My friend seemed to be struggling with some heat exhaustion and we were the only ones hiking that trail that day. Yes, we had signed in to the trail register but we had seen no other human being other than a father and son leaving the trail as we were beginning. They had spent the night in the High Peaks wilderness after hiking one of the taller peaks near that same trail-head. I wasn't worried about being the only people on the mountain that day. It's kind of exciting. I was nervous because of how far in to the wilderness we were and with a few trail blazes missing we really had to watch ahead of us. Would we find our way??

I prayed inside my head asking God to give us guidance and help us conquer this mountain trail. He did. But more importantly, He reminded me this week that just like on that trail, when we were a bit unsure at times of where to place our feet, we are sometimes like that on our life journey. We don't know which way to turn....which path to follow....where to place our feet.