RIVER REFLECTIONS: A walk in the park parallels a walk with the Lord

Published 5:00 pm Thursday, September 19, 2002

While on vacation in August, several friends and I decided to go fishing in a lake we had never before visited.

In fact not very many people had visited Jug Lake, simply because there is no trail to get there.

We knew it existed, because we saw it as plain as day on our topographic map. We carried a GPS satellite navigator, so we felt reasonably confident we could get at least within sight of the water by paying careful attention to our electronic gadgetry.

Jug Lake is located at about 4,300 feet in the North Cascades National Park near Concrete, Wash. Our hike in began at a little over 1,000 feet and we reached the additional 3,300 feet to the lake in less than two miles, as the crow flies. We could not fly like crows, however, and the very steep sides of the mountains were either heavily timbered with large Douglas firs and cedars or thickly covered with vine maples and alders.

Rapidly running streams and occasional waterfalls added both beauty and difficulty to our route. We picked our way through the few open spaces and fought our way over and under the tangle of vines and thorns of devil’s club. We tried to head as straight for the lake as possible, but the many detours probably tripled the actual distance we traveled.

One of the members of our party was a boy only 8 years old, and he had never before hiked quite as difficult a route as we chose that day. At first, the challenge of steep loose soil, large granite talus, and thick undergrowth was for Reed an exciting chance for play and for proof of his coming manhood.

Eventually he began to want to see where the hike was going to end.

Evidence of our progress promised to make the going easier, but little could be seen except our immediate surroundings. After almost four hours of bushwhacking, even the adults began to wish for some concrete evidence that Jug Lake was not far ahead. At one point, the pitch of the talus slopes became so steep we all stopped to rest; but even more, I sensed we all began to despair that we could get to Jug Lake with two youngsters and with time to cast for what we hoped were fantastic rainbow trout. Suddenly I was struck by the parallels between our hike and our Christian walk.

Our Lord asks us to strike out on our faith journey with little more evidence of our goal than our Bible (a map) and the guidance of the Holy Spirit (a GPS). For most of us, our route is exhausting as well as beautiful, and we frequently look for concrete evidence of where we ought to go. Hazards often threaten life and limb. When we persist in our climb, despite the lack of visual contact with our destination, we begin to live with divine hope.

The Apostle Paul tried to convey this idea in Romans 8:24-25, when he wrote, “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” The secret of being able to persist in the face of hardship, Paul again tells us, is Christian love. In 1 Corinthians 13:7 he writes, love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

We finally found Jug Lake, but too late to do any fishing. Someone once tried to convince me that I needed to learn how to find more fulfillment in the hike than I did in arriving at my final destination. Now I’m trying to impress that on an 8-year-old boy.

May God’s love and hope be your allies in your life’s journey.

Doug Rich, a local pastor, is often happiest with a pack on his back and an unknown trail ahead.