Let’s Start With Divorce

Quite honestly, a lot of my growth occurred several years ago as I went through my divorce.  I was forced to confront a lot of area in my life that I was simply stuck in and not growing.  I fought and prayed for reconciliation, and in the end, the answer was still “no”.  Many great things came from that time though, because I was very intentional with growing my character and living life a different way.

Affectionately, I refer to my life before the divorce as my “previous life”.  I call it this because that life is now dead, and I feel that the life I live now has more actual life in it.  One of the ways I was going to try to live differently was to start camping.  You see, in my previous life, I didn’t camp, so now I was going to try to do some things opposite of what I had done before.  So now I was a camper.

Well, I wasn’t really a camper, but I was going to give it my best shot.  I bought a tent, a stove, a sleeping bag, a chair, and on and on.  I didn’t have any camping stuff, so I started from zero.  This was during a period of time that lasted about a year and a half.  I was probably right smack dab in the middle of all of it and not much was happening with the divorce.  In a sense, I was stuck in the Waiting.

The Waiting

The late Tom Petty sang those ever so famous lines, “Waiting is the hardest part”.  It’s true.  Much of life is lived in the Waiting, the in between moments that seem to go on forever, marked occasionally by some sort of event that pushes our life story along.  At this moment in my life, I had reached a point where I desperately needed a breakthrough.  I tore through  my journal, furiously writing my thoughts and prayers to God.  At times, I felt like I could feel him working, but most of the time I felt like I was talking to myself.

At this moment, I NEEDED God to speak to me.  I was empty, alone, and broken.  I was trying to overcome addiction and I was desperate for support.  I had an idea.  I would go camping with all of my new stuff.  I would carve out an entire weekend and focus on listening to God.  It was going to be awesome, I would journal, he would speak, and I would be much better.

Camping – The First Day

This was my time to hear from God.  I left work early that Friday afternoon and headed to Fort Yargo, in Winder, GA.  I didn’t want to go too far, because I wanted to make it back to church on Sunday morning to serve on the parking team.  I set up my brand new tent, and laid out all of my other knick knacks and then paused.  I was ready.

Off I went to go around the lake on a hike.  Just me, my backpack, and my journal.  It was going to be 6 miles around.  I thought a brisk walk around the lake would work up a healthy appetite for dinner, and that I could do some journaling along the way.  I stopped a couple of times and wrote some things down, but I didn’t hear anything from God, so I kept hiking.

I got about halfway around the lake and hit a crossroads in the path.  I checked my map and then I pressed on.  I went for another hour, I should be getting close to finishing, but I look out and I am still so far from camp.  I check the map again and then check the sign at a stopping point.  Oh no.  I took the outer bike trail!  I now had another 6 miles to go to get back to camp.  It was getting late, and the sun was beginning to set.  I was another hour or two from the camp site, and now I need to double time it.  No time to stop and reflect, I just needed to get back to camp before dark.

Well, I finally did make it back to camp, but it was now dark and I was exhausted.  I turned on the lantern and fired up my stove.  I cooked a quick dinner and went to bed.  There was no time to hear from God that night.  It would have to wait until tomorrow.

Camping – The Second Day,  The Day God Was Silent

I awoke the next morning, refreshed.  Breakfast was calling my name, so I cooked up some eggs and sausage and started journaling again.  I would write in my journal quite a bit in this waiting period of my life.  Lots of questions and lots of requests.  “God, would you reconcile my marriage?”  “God, what are you doing with me?”  “God, would you heal me and my broken heart?  Would you heal my wife?”  “God, please speak to me, show me what you want me to do.”  On and on I wrote, pouring my heart out, waiting for a response, demanding a response.

The wind rustled the leaves.  The birds chirped.  The waves lapped against the shoreline.  My breath swirled through the crisp cold air of the morning.  But God was silent.

I went for another hike.  This time I was better prepared and made all the correct turns and got back to camp for lunch.  Again, I prepped and cooked a meal, and again I journaled, pouring my heart out.  “Please God, speak to me.”  Again, God was silent.

I started a fire, and poked at it with a stick.  This is, honestly, my favorite part of camping.  At some point I picked up a book and started reading.  I think it was called “The Search for Significance.”  I prepped and cooked dinner, and while I was eating, I journaled again, but now I was adamant that God speak to me.  Still, God was silent.

Anger

“Are you kidding me?!  What am I doing wrong?  I came all the way out here to the woods to spend time alone with YOU, God, and this is how you treat me?  What do you want from me?  Why won’t you speak with me?  All of this was for you, and nothing?  You are seriously not going to give me ANYTHING at all?!”

I was furious, red hot, with anger.  I felt betrayed.  I felt foolish.  All of these stories of God doing wonderful miracles for everyone else that you see on Facebook, yet here I am just asking for him to speak to me.  “God, you hurt me.”

Dealing With The Aftermath

I struggled with this, a lot.  I wasn’t sure what to do or how to move forward with God at all.  I sought out my counselor later the next week and told him the story of what happened.  He slapped me upside the head with a reality check that hit like a ton of bricks.

“Tony,  you can’t control your wife, and you certainly can’t control God.  He does not bow to your whims or demands.  He’s not your domesticated pet, he is wild, but he is in control.  So even though you set aside a time for God to speak to you, he decides when he speaks, not you.”

Ouch.  I let the cat out of the bag, but as you can see, I struggled with control.  And right now, they were really out of my control.  Truth is, most of life is out of my control, but I didn’t understand that back then.

“Tony, God was silent, but he was not absent.  He was there, in every moment, teaching you the discipline of seeking.  So continue seeking regularly.  And when God is ready to speak, you will have disciplined yourself.  You will be there, waiting.”