There's Just Something Different

There's just something different about waking up in the wilderness.
Maybe it's the quiet?
Maybe it's the fact there's no way technology can interfere?
Maybe it's the thought, 'I just slept in a tent and didn't encounter a bear?'
Or maybe it's the fact we were created to enjoy.

We were created to enjoy each other.
We were created to feel the rhythm of nature.
We were made to experience God's creation.

I was thinking the other day about the men of the Bible who went to the wilderness, and it seems to me; every BIG event in the Word was preceded by someone who spent time in the wilderness. Moses, Abraham, Paul, Jesus, and the list goes on and on. Is it coincidence? Or is there something we can learn?

I was reading Aesop the other day and found another story that tells of nature's ability to rest a man's soul. It's the Story of the Traveler and the Plane Tree. “Two Travelers, worn out by the heat of the summer’s sun, laid themselves down at noon under the widespreading branches of a Plane-Tree. As they rested under its shade, one of the Travelers said to the other, ‘What a singularly useless tree is the Plane! It bears no fruit, and is not of the least service to man.’ The Plane-Tree, interrupting him, said, ‘You ungrateful fellows! Do you, while receiving benefits from me and resting under my shade, dare to describe me as useless, and unprofitable’?”

I wonder if sometimes we see nature as something of a useless activity, when actually it gives us a sense of God's bigness, a sense of our community with each other, and prepare us for something God might want to show us.

The KIVU experience is one to help teenagers escape everyday life. It slows them down. It gives them the tools to see the benefits all around them, rather than simply taking them for granted. It helps them understand production versus living. It helps put nature into perspective.

Just like Aesop's tale gives us a view of paradigm, just because the tree didn't produce fruit doesn't mean it was useless. The traveler just had to see it a different way.

I wonder if we can't recognize God's movement in our lives it's because we haven't taken the time to see Him a part from business.

We're having a BLAST out here at KIVU! Wish you were here.