Often when I am walking on the greenway or hiking in the mountains, I am so focused on the trail that I forget to look around me, or even better, look up. This is especially true in the winter when I am trying to spot bright white or colorful fungi. For the next several months, I’ll also be looking for tree silhouettes that catch my eye. In the spring, I’ll scan the sides of the pathway for wildflowers.
If I’m hiking in the mountains, I’m usually watching where I put every step, as there are rocks and roots that clutter most of the trails. Fortunately, most of the hiking trails are steep, so I need to stop and catch my breath. This gives me the chance to gaze at the forest floor and look up. Often a bird calling in the branches will make me stop and hunt to find him through my binoculars. But sometimes I merely like to gaze at the tree canopy that covers me, noting the different colors of green, the varying shapes of the leaves and, in the fall, the colors they display.
Many of the hiking trails wind through deep woods until you reach the summit. Sometimes that’s a rock outcropping and you are standing on large boulders looking out at the waves of mountains. Other times, there is a vista that breaks open though the trees, or a lower summit offers a view such as the lovely boardwalk viewing station on Rough Ridge. On a recent hike to Huckleberry Knob, I found the summit clad in a lovely field of wildflowers. The mountaintop offers a 360-degree view of the Smokey Mountain ridges. But I often see people triumphantly gain the top of the mountain and then not linger long enough to enjoy the vistas. These heights also display lovely cloud formations making soft patterns on the blue ridges as they pass by.
Life is mostly about living in the present. Enjoying the journey, not just achieving the goal of making the top of the mountain or checking off a to do list. Jesus was all about the journey. He didn’t have a day planner. The Spirit prompted His travel route. He walked practically everywhere, even on water when needed. He didn’t ignore the people who approached Him, even when it was crowded. Most of us don’t live in the moment, but He did. That’s something to think about and practice.
The present is all we really have. If our mind is on tomorrow or tonight’s dinner, or a worry, or a to do list, we miss the minutes as they fly by. So the first thing we need to learn is to stop. Look around. Then gaze upward and fill your eyes. There is treasure laid out all around you, waiting to be discovered. It may be a toad sunning himself on a tree trunk, barely visible, until you stop and study him. It may be a bird building a nest or merely singing happily on a nearby branch. It could be the colors of the sky laid out from light to deep blue. Or maybe it’s just the lovely sight of the branches in the tree canopy reaching out toward each other in some mysterious way that we don’t completely understand.
When Jesus comes again, we will need to look up, because He’s coming the same way he left—in the clouds. “For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” (1)
And that, my friends, means that it might be good to practice looking up, thanking Him He’s going to come in such a visible way.
“Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.”
Matthew 24:30 NIV
- Matthew 24:27 NIV
