Getting away from the grind and all the stress that life brings can be one of the most pleasant things to enjoy in this life. I had the chance to experience one of those times when I got the chance last weekend to go on a camping trip with some of the men from my church. We went to Unicoi Park located in Helen, GA. It was beautiful and a great place to just take in nature and the glory that God has made. Seeing God's handiwork up close is one of the ways to experience his glory and praise him for creating this beautiful world no matter how much it is stained by sin. Although, as beautiful as nature can be, it is just a taste of what will be experienced heaven and completely in the presence of our Holy God.
During this time in the woods, we had a chance to worship our Lord and Savior, which was great as well as listen to two different devotionals which dealt with being men of God. My favorite song, which was sung on the second morning, was In Christ Alone. This song helps to remind me that my trust and life need to be in Christ Alone and nothing else. The first of these devotionals included looking to the illustration of Abraham and Isaac when Abraham was told to sacrifice his only son that he waited so long to have as well as Jesus Christ and God as he was went to the cross to die for the sins of the world. The event of Abraham being called to sacrifice his son on an altar for God was a lesson in putting his full trust in God no matter what the situation was. Since Abraham passed this lesson, a ram showed up caught in a thicket which was to sacrificed instead of his son Isaac. The offering of the ram in place of Abraham's son is a foreshadowing of Jesus, God's only son, being offered instead of us on the cross for the penalty of the world's sins.
The other devotional dealt with the differences between men and women as well as a look into certain biblical characters that we can learn from. These people included Adam, Abraham and Jesus. Adam is seen as someone who we share in our sin nature. For Abraham, we also share in our sin nature, but also are to look with our faith as he did in trusting God and his will for our lives. For Jesus, even though we do not share in our sin nature with him, he did die for our sins completely (past, present and future). By trusting in Christ and what he did on the cross, we are able to rest in the confidence that we have eternal life with Christ for eternity after we die on this earth. This is a great thought!
I want to also mentioned the effect of my Tourette Syndrome on this camping trip at this time. My anxiety was in full effect when I first got to the site and it seemed like such a hard task to calm myself down. This feeling seemed to be due to the fact that I was having a hard time dealing with slowing myself down to the pace of camping and not being on a "go-go-go" mentality that I seem to be on majority of the time. Once the first night ended, the anxiety seemed to go away most of the time except when we were playing ultimate frisbee or football. Besides the anxiety that I was feeling, I also was dealing with a couple of tics which included, jerking my neck (which caused some neck pain) as well as a hand tic, which consisted of moving my fingers back and forth in a repetitive motion (this happened mainly when I was trying to fall asleep). These tics were hard to control, but when I did it felt a little easier to enjoy camping and the fellowship of the other men and boys from my church.
In general, being out in nature and experiencing God's glory is an amazing feeling and one that I enjoy having the opportunity to do whenever I get the chance. The smell of the outdoors, campfire crackles, smores, hiking trails, beautiful scenery are many of the things that are experienced on a camping trip and can bring about lasting memories and experiences for years to come. Until next time, Take Care and God Bless everyone!
