Coming Back from the Woods

This is a look back.

It was a Friday. I finished class, emptied my backpack of textbooks, and filled it with warm clothes. After grabbing a salad to eat along the way, I climbed into the car and turned off my phone. I wasn't going alone. In fact, there would be around a hundred student leaders from my college that would be meeting at a camp two hours away. Most of us didn't know each other, but we all had the same mission on campus, to lead and disciple a small group of fellow students, walking together towards Christlikeness.

We spent the weekend in hammocks in the middle of the woods. We cooked our breakfast over a campfire. It rained the first night. It was cold. There were no showers.

It was an amazing time, and I didn't really want to come back.

We spent the days learning how to be better leaders by being better lovers of Jesus, better worshipers. It was so beneficial to be reminded of my goal as a leader. It wasn't to fix all the problems my girls bring to me over the next year. My goal was to become a person so full of the love of God, that it couldn't help but overflow in to the lives of those around me. That they would want more of God after their time spent with me. Being reminded to simply aim for God's glory, better oriented my mind to lead while rooted in my own worship.

But the real reason I struggled to want to return home was simply the closeness I felt to God while I was away. I woke each morning when the sun rose, grabbed my Bible, and walked out into the forest. All of my desires were oriented to be with God and His Word. Even simple things like getting a shower, getting changed for the day, making coffee weren't there to divide my attention. My affections were clearer, not muddied by all the tasks to be accomplished.

Things at home didn't stop happening while I was away, and the homework that needed to get done would still need to be done. However, life was simpler, and my worship purer. I was being constantly reminded to focus on what matters, who God is and what He has done. And I did it.

I'm a camp person. It was a familiar feeling, being silent in the midst of God's Creation, reading and praying, not having a clue of how much time has passed. But I knew from camp, that this feeling doesn't last. I knew that as soon as I turned my phone back on, my affections would be pulled in many directions that would not be towards God. I knew that it would even become difficult to remember the Words I studied in the morning, once back in the grind of life.

But I can't stay in the woods forever. God didn't call me to live a life of solitude. He called me to share his gospel, to glorify Him publicly, to tell of His mighty works and praise is majestic name. Back in the craziness of life is where my distractions are, but it's also where the people are. In the busyness is where the individuals, made in the image of God, are living lives that mean nothing. If I love the truth of God's Word as I say I do, then I will earnestly declare the magnificent atonement of Jesus Christ and the transformative work of the Spirit in my life.

//Alyson Jennie