Seasons and Horizons

I didn’t know I was going hiking today.

I certainly didn’t know I would end up standing among rocks in the Appalachian Mountains, thinking about how old they are—and how short my own life is.

I woke up in the middle of the night around one o’clock and couldn’t get back to sleep for a couple of hours. I watched some YouTube, eventually went back to bed sometime after three, and got up again around six.

And strangely enough, I felt pretty good.

I thought maybe I’d go for a hike.

Nothing crazy.

Maybe a couple of miles.

Then somewhere along the way, that changed.

Screw it. Let’s do it.

And once again, I walked through a door without knowing exactly where it was going to lead.

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Older Than I Can Comprehend

As I climbed higher today, the trail became rocks.

Then bigger rocks.

Then enormous rocks.

Somewhere among all of that, I started thinking about these mountains themselves.

The Appalachian Mountains are hundreds of millions of years old. Once they were much taller and more rugged than the mountains we see today. Time, weather and erosion have worn them down.

And there I was—one man walking across them for a few hours.

It puts a human lifetime into perspective.

Psalm 90 talks about seventy years, or perhaps eighty if our strength endures.

Then a couple of verses later comes a prayer I keep coming back to:

“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” — Psalm 90:12

These mountains may have hundreds of millions of years behind them.

I might get seventy.

Maybe eighty.

Maybe more.

Maybe less.

And strangely, that doesn’t make my days feel insignificant.

It makes them feel incredibly valuable.

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What Does It Mean to Number Our Days?

Maybe numbering our days isn’t about constantly wondering how many we have left.

Maybe it’s about realizing that this one counts.

Today counts.

This morning counted.

The decision to get out of bed counted.

The decision to drive to a trail I’d never hiked counted.

The climb counted.

The people I met counted.

The laughter counted.

Even hearing a rattlesnake somewhere among the rocks certainly got my attention.

None of this was on my calendar when I woke up.

But that’s becoming one of the things I’m learning about life.

Some doors don’t announce themselves.

Sometimes they look like an ordinary Saturday morning.

Sometimes the only decision you have to make is whether you’re willing to walk through.

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Seven Days and Millions of Years

Standing among these mountains also made me think about creation.

I believe God created this world.

I believe He could have spoken it into existence in an instant.

I also don’t believe that hundreds of millions of years somehow makes God smaller.

We measure existence in minutes, hours, days and years because we live inside time.

God doesn’t.

What feels unimaginably long to me doesn’t have to be unimaginably long to the One who created time in the first place.

I don’t pretend to understand exactly how all of that works.

Maybe I’m not supposed to.

But I can stand among ancient rocks, look at something far older than myself, and still see the fingerprints of a Creator.

Maybe even more clearly.

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The Season I’m In

That’s part of what Seasons and Horizons is becoming for me.

Travel.

Adventure.

Everyday life.

And the lessons we pick up along the way.

It’s about getting out and seeing what’s beyond the next horizon.

It’s about appreciating the season of life we’re in right now.

And most of all, it’s about noticing God’s quiet gifts in the ordinary moments of the journey.

Today started as an ordinary Saturday.

I didn’t know where I was going.

I didn’t know how far I would hike.

I didn’t know what I would see.

And I certainly didn’t know I’d end up thinking about ancient mountains, rattlesnakes, creation and the number of days I’ve been given.

But maybe that’s the point.

I don’t have to know where every door leads before I walk through it.

I just have to be willing to take the next step.

These mountains will outlive me.

But today, I got to walk among them.

And today counts.