The Spiritual Side of Hiking Acatenango

I wanted to set aside a blog post to tell you all what God was doing as I hiked Acatenago and what He was teaching me, because as amazing as the view was, it was nothing compared to what God taught me during the hours of hiking.

First: His Faithfulness

For the past week, I’d had to stay in bed all day, because the simplest tasks (sitting up because my ear hurt from laying on it all day) exhausted me. Throughout that whole time, God was telling me to hike up a volcano, and yet, when the day came, I was still so weak from that illness. But God had left no doubt for what I was supposed to do, so I stepped out in faith, and He sustained me. I should not have been able to hike that mountain. I was slow and so thankful for each break we took, but the fact that I could do it at all was proof that God was working behind the scenes.

Second: It’s harder to stay in one spot than to keep moving forward in God’s plan.

God sustained me as long as I was hiking, because that’s what He called me to do, but when we’d reached base camp and I was no longer needing to work to follow His will, everything became much harder. I felt the altitude and the exhaustion in my entire body. In the same way, when we’re content to stay where we’re at, instead of pushing deeper into God’s plan, suddenly we’re the ones doing the work, not Him, and everything becomes much harder.

Third: Logic and Faith can mix, but they’re not always found together.

It made sense for me to come on the Race. It’s an amazing experience, I’ll grow so much closer to God in it, and it’s the perfect time of my life to go. That’s an example of logic and faith. An example of faith without logic is hiking up a mountain, after being ill for a long week, because God tells you too. But oftentimes, that’s when God shows up in the most noticeable ways!

Fourth: I will praise Him on the mountain isn’t the full story.

We look at the summit of a mountain as a high of our walk (literally and figuratively),  but we often forget to look back at the hard journey it took to get to the top. Not everyone on top of a mountain is there from their own strength.

Fifth: God sustains in different ways.

Hiking up to base camp, God gave me strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Hiking up to the summit, God gave me joy and laughter to carry me even when it felt like the mountain was too steep to climb. Don’t limit the ways God can carry you!

Sixth: God sometimes waits for you to step out in faith before answering your prayer.

I’d been praying for healing in my ear for so long, yet I never saw any significant improvement until I listened to God and hiked to the summit of Acatenago. As I was hiking, my ear opened, and I could start to hear out of it. It’s still not fully healed, but there is no pain now, and my hearing is almost back to normal, and it all stems from that hike!

The more I think about my experience, the more I come up with, but this blog is long enough already, so that’s all!