The Big Dark Woods

I was five years old and I was ticked.  My older sister had pushed me too far this time, and I decided it was time to get away from her and head out on my own.  So I packed my car and left.  Ok, I put my favorite hot wheels into my pocket and went out the door.  Same difference.

I marched across our big backyard, looked both ways at the road that came behind our place, marched across it and across the big field and down the hill into the big, dark woods.  Usually the big, dark woods were not a place I would go to play by myself.  But this day was different.  I was angry and I didn’t care.  So I marched my little five-year old self right into them.  Down the big hill I went and came abruptly to the big creek.  It was a bit big for me to cross, but no matter. I would turn and walk along it.  Anywhere just to be free from her. 

I hadn’t noticed that it was getting close to dark, because I was mad.  Have you noticed that when you’re mad you tend to miss important things like that?    So there I was, ticked off and marching upstream along the creek with the sun going down.  I pushed on through the briars and the thickets, thinking five year-old angry thoughts.

“Who needs her anyway?” I muttered.  “Well, I’m five years old and I can take care of myself!  I’m never going back! Never. Never. Never!  I’ll live out in the woods like Swift Arrow.  Only I won’t live with the Indians.  Just out in the woods.  I’ll learn to swing from tree to tree and everything.”  On and on I went for some time.

When I finally noticed the lengthening shadows and the deepening darkness, I reasoned that I could live in the woods a bit closer to home. I would still be in the woods, but closer to home, you know,  just in case. So I turned around and headed back down the creek bank the way I had previously come.  Only now, I wasn’t quite as mad, and I was starting to get a little bit scared.

In the part of the country where we lived at the time, there were coyotes that roamed quite freely.  Usually, after dark.  In my five year-old anger, I had also forgotten about them.  Now somewhere behind me, farther upstream, I got a chilling reminder.

“AHHOOOOOOOOOOW,” came a coyote howl.  The little hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.  I was a little less angry and a little more scared.  I picked up the pace as I pushed back through the briars and thickets I had come through earlier in my anger.

“AHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWW!” came a response a little closer to where I was.  I picked up the pace again.  Not real angry anymore, but a whole lot scared.  As I pushed on, my ears and my imagination began to hear everything that was and wasn’t out there.  I heard (or thought I heard) heavy, coyote breathing.  I could imagine the saliva dripping off of the long coyote fangs, just like the cartoon wolves looking at a flock of sheep, as the coyotes could see me with their night vision skills.

“AAAAHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWW!” a loud one came real close by.  Forget the anger…I was now in a full-scale panic.  My eyes bugged out, my heart raced and I began clawing my way through the thickets, bouncing off of trees and yelling my little five year-old lungs out.  

“HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!!!” I screamed as loud as I could.  I bounced off the sixth tree before I heard a voice that was sweet music to my ears.

“Donnie! Dooooonnieeeeeeee! Where are you?”  It was DAD!  He was looking for me! “Donnie!”

 “Over here!” I yelled as loud as could. 

“Keep talking, son!” dad yelled back.

“Overhereoverhereoverhereoverhereoverhere.” I yelled, and soon I was scooped up into my Dad’s strong arms, and before long found myself being carried out of the big, dark woods, across the meadow, across the road, across the big, backyard and into the safety of home.

Here's the point! There is in the heart of God a place I know as home.

It doesn’t matter how angry I get at my sister.  It doesn’t matter how far into the big, dark woods I go.  It doesn’t matter if the coyotes are coming.  No matter how dark and scary my picture looks, if I listen, I can hear the voice of my Father calling.   He’s looking for me!  He’ll stride right into the middle of my dark and scary woods, even though my anger and my running is what caused the problem, and He’ll pick me up and carry me back to the safety of home.  There is in the heart of God a place I know as home. 

And if I read scripture correctly, there is a place in the heart of God for you too! 

John 6:37 says:  “I will never turn away anyone who comes to Me.”

Matthew 6:6, “Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest.”

And here’s one of the best: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the ends of the earth.”    Matthew 28:20

This world has become a dark and scary place to live.  As the shadows of earth’s history lengthen and the darkness deepens, we know that our enemy is on the prowl.  The Bible doesn’t compare him to a coyote, but to a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. (see 1 Peter 5:8)  He’s closing in because he knows his time is short.

You, like me, may be angry at a brother or a sister in the church.  You may be running away from home.  Running across the street into the big, dark woods.  You may suddenly find yourself being tracked by a ferocious predator, and your hope is rapidly vanishing into a world that seems dark. 

But stop.  Stop running and listen.  The Father is calling your name.  He’s looking for you!  He's asking you the same question He asked Adam and Eve.  “Where are you?”  And if you answer, He’ll come and scoop you up into His big, strong arms and carry you back to the safety of HOME.

There is in the Father’s heart, a place that you can know as home.  He’s calling.  Are you answering?

Me at the age of 5 standing by my dad.------>>>

Indoor Rapelling (or the coolest way down to lunch)

Somewhere in my younger life I got the impression that to be a good Christian, one had to look like they had just sucked on a lemon and have breath that smelled like they had refused dental care because of the Lord’s imminent return, as it would just be a waste of money.  
 
I think I got the impression from a few of the older ladies in our church when I was growing up, one in particular, who backed me into the corner of the church porch with her cane and wilted me down with both her breath, and a verbal barrage about not “being ready for the Kingdom with behavior” like mine.  Her style of Christianity was fine, I guess, but it sure didn’t appeal to me. Besides, I reasoned, if she were going to the Kingdom, it would be reason enough for me to stay away.
 
I just wasn’t wired that way.  I had a hard time keeping my mind on anything very long.  If there was any lull in the action, I could think of something to occupy it.  My mind would race along with new ideas popping in all the time.  I just never knew when something new would come in.  And I wasn’t always good at deciding whether it was a good idea or a bad one until I had tried it.
 
“Wherever did you come up with that idea?” my second grade substitute asked after she discovered all of the boys in their seats after recess and mud on the windowsill. During recess one of my friends and I had been discussing the “girls are always first” rule.  He had stated that he didn’t like waiting all of that time, because he felt some of the girls took advantage at the water fountain and drank like camels and used up all of the guys time to get a drink.  Then we were all told to cut it short because we needed to get back to class.
 
I simply observed that it was actually a shorter distance to the ground-level windows of our classroom than back around the building to line up.  All of the guys could climb through the windows, I reasoned, have their drinks and be in their seats before the girls line got there.  We would tell the substitute that our teacher always let us do that to save her time.  What did substitutes know anyway?  We passed the word and Operation Windowsill was born.
 
It worked as planned, except that I hadn’t factored in the substitute’s lack of patience as she waited with all of the girls in the hot sun outside.  I also hadn’t figured it would actually get us in trouble since we didn’t do any damage.  All of us got marched back down the hall and had to line up outside, and then each of us got a whack on the seat with the paddle as we were then sternly told, “Now WALK down the hall and to your desk.”
 
Then there was the time in seventh-grade when my friend, Charlie and I decided to test the theory of gradually increasing the temperature of water on a frog to see if it would jump out.  It didn’t. Stupid frog actually stayed in and met his demise.
 
Or the time in high school when another friend and I put on garbage cans with a “push” lid, and tried to follow the night watchman that we had dubbed “Barney Fife”, up the center campus sidewalk. Each time he would spin around with flashlight in hand, we would stoop down on the side of the sidewalk in the garbage cans.  “Hmmm,” he would mutter, “I could have sworn I heard something.”   It would have worked if we hadn’t gotten fancy and tried to criss-cross the sidewalk each time.  As we were running across we accidentally banged into each other. When he spun around this time, he found himself face to face with two garbage cans with legs!  It was hard outrunning him with those cans, but somehow we managed.
 
So, given my history of unique ideas coming from a lull in the action, it should have been no surprise that my History of Western Civilization class in college, became a veritable think-tank.  A time of churning out the ideas.  Some good.  Some not.  But who’s to know till you try?
 
History was at 1 p.m. And, as any college student can tell you, there is no worse time to have to take a class than right after lunch. There is no blood leftover from the digestion process to go to your head and actually make it work.  And when you have a history teacher that has been teaching the one o’clock slot for years because his delivery matched the time slot, you’ve got a real recipe for disaster.
 
Our professor was a real nice guy, but his delivery of the material was designed to aid in the sleep and digestion department.  We had a class of about 120 students.  History majors had dibs on the front seats, and then it was alphabetical from front to back down each row. I sat, alphabetically, about half way back in the middle. Which is too far back for my type to get anything from a class which doubles as a sleep aid.
 
The Prof would look down at his lectern, simply reading the material. Every so often, not at any regular intervals, mind you, he would stop, look up and smile.  Then he would look back to the lectern and proceed in his best monotone.
 
So this is what I got. “In the year, humahumahum, there was humahum, blah blah blah humahumahuma.” Pause. Look up. Smile.  Look back down.  “Furthermore, they wanted to hummmmmahummma….” Snore.  And my grade reflected my rapt attention.
 
I woke up one day in the middle of class to make an accidental discovery.  My arousal from slumber inadvertently coincided with one of his “pause and smile” points.  I accidentally happened to hear what he said just prior to the smile, and realized that it was a humorous statement.  Well, as humorous as history can be under the circumstances. I was jazzed.  To think—each time he smiled, he was spewing forth historical humor, and I was missing it.
 
I woke up several friends around me to share my discovery.  “Hey, you know when he smiles?” I asked.  “Yeah, so?”  “Well, every time he smiles, he’s just told a joke!”
 
“No way!”  
 
“Way!  Just watch.”  I now had about 12 in my immediate area watching and trying to listen intently. Suddenly he looked up and grinned. Somehow we had missed it.   
 
“Excuse me, sir,” my friend Rick now had his hand in the air, “but could you repeat that last line.”
 
The Prof looked truly pleased for any sign of life and was only too happy to oblige.  He reread the line and it was, indeed, somewhat humorous.  Of course we all burst into laughter, and again, looking intensely pleased he made a note in the margin.  I think it must have been, “This is a very funny joke.  Pause longer, smile broader.”
 
His notes were so old they were yellow, and one day, as he turned the page, the page actually broke off.  It was the first time anyone ever heard him say anything in class that wasn’t scripted.  I didn’t actually see it break, but those who did, described it as a scene of extreme frustration and bewilderment. He had flipped the page and the papyrus had actually broken.  (Ok it wasn’t papyrus, but it had to be the first run right after they discovered paper.)  Anyway, he couldn’t figure out what to do.  A horrified look crossed his face, and the awkwardly long pause is what woke me up.  
 
I woke up to actually hear him utter his now infamous, unscripted statement.
 
“Hmmmmmm,” he said. Just like that. “Hmmmmmmm.” Then he continued, “Guess I’ll have to retype that page.  (Yes, boys and girls, this was back in the day before computers, when every page had to be re-typed, not just reprinted.)
 
At any rate, he abruptly went on with the lecture, and I went into warped-mind mode.  A few days earlier, I had discovered a little door at the back of a mechanical closet in the student center.  Being the curious sort, I opened it to see where it went.  Well, as luck would have it, it didn’t go anywhere, it just sat in its frame and swung back and forth.  But on the other side of the door, I made a grand discovery.  The little door was actually an access door to the space above the college dining hall.  Not having time to do anything with this new information at the time, I had closed the little door and gone on my merry way.  
 
Now, in the middle of history, my mind began to formulate a plan.   Wouldn’t it be cool to somehow tie on to a beam up there, open one of the ceiling tiles and rappel down to lunch?  Oh, that would be cool!  But I would need help.
 
My friend, Ronnie, quietly slumbering two rows over, was well known for his mountain climbing skills.  He had all sorts of equipment.  He would be a great choice for a partner on this escapade.  I hastily wrote a note describing my discovery and my idea and passed it to Rick, sitting next to me, to pass over to Ron.  Rick quickly scanned the note and then passed it on, while leaning back my direction to let me know that he wanted in on the gig too!
 
As soon as class was over, we headed for the student center.  We slipped into the closet, and swung open the magical access door.  Wonderment and glee played on Ronnie and Rick’s faces as we eased out onto the catwalk above the dining hall ceiling.  It was a whole huge room by itself.  Ronnie quickly located a beam above the ceiling grid that would work, and we lifted one corner of the tile to see where we would be in the dining hall.  Perfect.  We would drop right into the front left corner closest to the tray return.   There was an exit nearby, so we could make our grand entrance and then if necessary, beat a hasty retreat.  
 
We decided since the next day was Thursday, and as such, there was chapel just before lunch, we would all take a chapel skip and set up while everyone else was in chapel.  Then, after chapel let out, the dining hall would fill up quickly with the chapel rush.  We would wait until it got fairly full, and then make our big appearance.
 
Thursday, we worked the plan.  Ronnie showed up with all of his gear.  He’d even gone so far as to put on his little German leather knickers and lederhosen, to give it the alpine flair.   We checked to make sure no one was looking and then ducked into the mechanical room.  Once inside the attic of the dining hall, Ronnie located the right spot again and slipped a piece of webbing over the top of the beam and brought it back through, tying it off to make a loop.  
 
Next, he tied the rope to the webbing and then pulled seat harnesses out of his climbing pack. After giving each of us one, he showed us how to put them on and how to clip in and went over safety procedures. We became aware of the cafeteria starting to buzz below us.
 
Chapel was out and the rush was on.  We had told no one of our plan, except my roommate Keith, so he could take pictures of the big event.  We waited until the noise below us grew very lively, and then Ronnie stooped down and picked up the tile, moving it out of the way.
 
“You’re first, Keele,” Ronnie said.  “This was your idea, so go for it.”
 
“What do I do? What do I say?” I stammered, suddenly thinking maybe this was not such a good idea. 

“Just clip in and go. As far as what to say…say something witty like you always do, and we’ll build on it when we come down,” Ronnie said as he dropped the rope through the hole in the ceiling.
 
A hush suddenly fell on the crowd and Ronnie clipped me in.  I swung off the catwalk over the hole and began my descent.  I got about halfway down and stopped as I looked all around the dining room.  About a thousand people were staring back at me.  I looked back up towards my comrades.  Rick gave me the thumbs up sign and grinned.
 
“We should have turned left instead of right back there, guys!”  I said, still looking up.  The crowd roared.  I slid on down the rope and landed right beside the academic dean who stood holding a tray waiting for me at the bottom of the rope.  How had I missed seeing him before now?
 
“Keele,” asked the dean, “does your mother know you’re out doing stuff like this?”
 
“Um, no sir,” I said, “And it would probably be best if you didn’t tell her either.”
 
He laughed and walked away! I was to later find out that he thought this was some sort of SA announcement and that I had asked permission from Mr. Evans, the cafeteria director.   I looked around and there was Mr. Evans, who naturally assumed since the dean was laughing and walking away, I must have asked permission from the dean. So he turned and went back into the kitchen.
 
Rick was next. He came down about halfway and stopped.  “Whoa, we should have gone over a lot further!”  He said.  Again the crowd laughed.  
 
He came on down as I said, “No, I think we should have turned left instead of right back there.”
 
“No, we should have gone over farther!” he countered.
 
“Let’s see what Ronnie thinks!” I said.  “Hey Ronnie!”
 
“Yeah?”
 
“Come on out and give us your opinion.”
 
“Ok, just a second,” came the voice from the attic.
 
I told you that Ronnie was wearing the little German leather knickers and lederhosen.  What I didn’t tell you is that Ronnie decided to really look the part, so he had put on his climbing pack with an ice axe and crampons and ropes all on the outside of it.  In fact, he is wearing so much stuff, that his ice axe gets stuck in the ceiling as he tried to come through it.  Ronnie had to pull himself back up with one hand and free his ice axe with the other, then turn and wiggle his way through the hole in the ceiling. Once free of the ceiling, he slid down about halfway.
 
“Hey—this ain’t the girls dorm!”  The crowd roared its delight yet again.
 
“I told you we should have turned left instead of right!”  “No, we should have gone over farther.”  “You guys said we’d be in the girl’s dorm.”  We went around and around with our lines as we walked out the nearby exit.
 
For months, people would stop me to ask me why we did it.  “To bring a smile to someone’s face, and to let them know that you can have fun as a Christian,” was my only answer.
 
Some would just laugh and walk away.  Others would walk away shaking their heads muttering about reprobates. Still others would simply make a statement about how Christians should act, implying that our behavior wasn’t truly representative.
 
Let me ask you a question: Do you think God loved me any less at the bottom of the rope than he did at the top?
 
Somehow we’ve gotten the idea that God the Father is sitting up on his throne as, humorist Ken Davis portrays Him, saying, “My people are having fun.  NO!” as he stomps on the ground.
 
I think Ken is right when he continues.  “What God is probably really saying is: ‘Hey angels, come look at this idiot. Ah, I love this guy!’” (video: A Twisted Mind)
 
See, what I’ve learned since being cornered by a cane and halitosis is that God isn’t stuffy at all.  God loves me, warped ideas and all.  God loves you, too.  Which brings me to my point.
 
 God’s vision for me: Life as He lives it.  When you’ve got the most Creative Person in the universe, how could He settle for a boring drab life?  God is concerned with the quality of human life.
 
3 John 2 says: I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.  (NIV)

God wants you to enjoy life.  Maybe not slide down a rope into the dining hall, but truly enjoy life.  Too many of us slip into a humdrum life of just going through the motions.  We go to school, go to work, go home, go to bed.  And in between, we seek to fill our days with artificial things; the glitz and glamour of this world.  And we wonder where the joy is.
 
While that may be ok for a little while, God has much bigger plans for you and I.  Check out one of my favorite texts in all of scripture.
 
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”        Jeremiah 29:11 NIV

God cares about your life!  He cares about how you live it, because He wants you to maximize it.  Don’t use the line: “You only go around once” as an excuse to throw your life away.  God’s vision for you is life as HE lives it.  Full. Abundant. Exciting. Creative. Adventurous. Free of guilt, shame and despair. He wants you to have a quality life. To have LIFE as He lives it.