• Hiking is a great adventure.
• Hiking brings release.
• Hiking provides us space to get “away.”
• Hiking helps us reveal our pantings.
• Hiking also helps us find the path, yes, the Way to the restoring of our innermost longing.
• Hiking allows for us to make a trade—Trading This for That.

What do we pant for?

What do we most desire?

What do we long for?

Deep down—Where our inner thoughts reside—What do we KNOW we long for more than anything?

There appears to be two layers to all of us—
1. What we allow the world to see.  &
2.  What we only see.
Which layer does Almighty God know? & Which layer does Father God intimately see?

Truly, God sees both.

Do you love to hike? I do. I really love to hike.  Unfortunately, I do not hike daily, for a variety of reasons.
While there are many national and state parks where we can travel to in order to hike, and while we may journey a long distance to hike a new trail, there are even more places to hike, places found just a few steps from our front porch.

We now own my husband’s family farm (yes, it’s true….we may be farmers…..again), and now that we own more land (than just our seven-acre plot), we have opportunity to hike across the land, to explore, to poke about…once we place our hiking boots onto our feet and go.
There is a great truth that occurs as we hike.  We move, taking one step after step after step after step as we hike across the land, trading our This for God’s That. Even though we can choose to take a walk around the city block or we can choose to take a walk down our country road, there becomes a sweet difference between HIKING  &  WALKING.  That sweet difference is found inside us….deep inside where we find our longings, where God provides us a way to trade our This for God’s That.

What do we long for?
Deep down—-Where our inner thoughts reside—-What do we KNOW we long for more than anything?
If we ever hiked across the land, then we’ve seen the way God’s world is alive with His creation.  

• Come on a hike with me….Today.
• Come with me as we move across our property, coming to the barnyard gate, lifting the chain that sits upon the nail, lifting the gate slightly to release the tension.
• Come hike with me as we step across the cattle pasture, watching where we place our feet, step after step until we reach the creek.
• Come hike with me, where in the drier seasons, we can hike across the creek rocks, balancing with our out-stretched arms as we cross; yet, in the wetter seasons, we must hike over toward a narrow part of the creek, either jumping from side to side OR climbing down into the creek, as we step across, going from place to place where the creek has made a turn in the ground.
• Come hike with me as we consider how the water makes a new path whenever resistance comes to the former way it once flowed.  See, with me, how the water, when forced to stop flowing in one place will flow anew, another way, moving in a different direction, a different place as it never forgets to flow.  
• Come hike with me as we notice how the water has not changed on the outside—it is still wet water.
• Come see how water is still water, not changing what it is, but changing where it resides, where it flows, where it will eventually go.
• Come hike with me as we step into the water, feeling the same wetness, as we place our boots into the stream hiking across to the other side. 
• Come hike with me and sense the change that occurs. See how the water has changed as it flows a new way, a new path, a new place; &
• Come hike with me and sense the change that occurs within us. See how we have changed as we hike a new way, a new path, a new place.

In the Bible, in Psalms, we are given much truth. In our deepest longing, in the place where we find our longing, where we search for the TRUTH, for what we seek more than anything, come with me to see.

Come hike with me, for when we hike across the family farm, once we cross the creek, we will come to vast fields, large pasture fields where the cattle feed.
These fields can be enjoyed by hiking from the creek, hiking up the slight elevation grade to the pinnacle of the fields, OR
These fields can be enjoyed by hiking along the edge, staying close beside the perimeter fence line.
Both provide space to think.
Both grant head-space time to consider our life-direction.

The heaviness of life can cause us much despair as we struggle with others, with our work, with our pursuits, and with our journey.  Hiking away from the confines of others, away from the control of a city street or a country road provides opportunity to just hike, to step across the earth, to step, to climb, to move across the open pasture.  Hiking provides thinking time.—Hiking provides us a Way to find HOPE.—Hiking provides us space to find God.

We long for earthly things such as good health, job security, strong relationships, job promotions, and even for solutions to our issues that cause us despair.  Truly, there is nothing wrong with longing for these things, but what do we long for deep within us, what we KNOW we long for more than anything?
Longing is hope secured.
Hope is only secure when God is present.
Hope is only secure as God’s Word reveals.

Hope is spiritual promise.   &
Hope is eternal security, a sureness that rushes over us as we go, as we move, as we live.
Whenever we hike across the pasture fields, we come back to that same creek, the one we jumped across OR the one we climbed down into and stepped across.
As we hike the remaining steps home, we know the trade we have made as we hiked.  Our Father God allows us to make a trade with Him every day—-this for that.
Cares for Contentment. 
Problems for Provision.
Failures for Faith.
When we give God our worry, our anxieties, our problems, our cares, our fears, and our failures, we trade all that for God’s Peace.
A This for That.
We make a trade as we hike (leaving the struggles of the world).
We make this trade as we hike (as we live, focused beyond what we see here on earth, and receiving an eternal HOPE for what we cannot see with our physical eyes).

Maybe you have never hiked, & Maybe you hike often, realizing exactly how peace comes as we do (Hike together with our Father God), & Maybe you understand exactly how we Hike….Trading Our This for His That.
Thank you Carmel and Letty (my in-laws) for being farmers, for preserving the land where escape may occur as we hike.
Thank you Darrell (my husband) for knowing the land would bring us space to hike.
Thank You, Jesus, (my Savior) for knowing what our soul most pants for (for the deepest longing we KNOW).
Thank You God (my Father) for the help of Your presence.
Come, let us hike together with God throughout life. As we do (hike), may we remember to ever praise You, GOD.