fear

I have some stories to share from last week.

United Methodist Pastors are required to spend two weeks each year in continuing education. Everyone knows that preachers need to get smarter. Often continuing education consists of going somewhere and sitting in a seminar. One of the things that I have chosen to do the last three years is to take a week and go to a camp in the California Redwoods to read. I am constantly accumulating books that I need to read, and a week sequestered away with a pile of books is one way that I have found to get them digested.

So I am at this camp last week outside of Ben Lomond , California. The camp is at the end of a very narrow road. There are no street lights, you can barely call it a street. My cabin is at the end of the road, the farthest up the hill. This is a one way road and in some places you can barely sneak a car past the trees.

One night, after spending the afternoon at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park and stopping for Pizza on the way back to the cabin, I arrived after dark. And let me tell you, it was dark. I realized as I pulled up in front of the cabin that this is about as quiet and dark as a person is ever going to find.

I have to walk from the car to the cabin in the pitch blackness of the night. Did I mention that there are signs all over this part of the country warning you about the presence of mountain lions? I was never so glad to get into that cabin and shut the door.

Fear. I wish my worst fear was fear of the dark. I guess one good thing about worry and fear is that it tends to push me back towards God. When I find myself in the valleys of life, my heart tends to look harder for the Shepherd.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.