Canoeing the Mountains

devotion by Pastor Marty

I have a canoe that lives under my deck. Early summer, we found a better place for the canoe…in the water! Canoes seemingly work better when they are in water. We went canoeing almost every week in June. We knew where we were going. We had our route. If we wanted to get to the other side, we had to paddle. It required some work, but with snacks in hand, it always came with joy and delight.

Often, Jesus would say, “Let us go to the other side.” The disciples usually knew what the other side meant – Gentile territory. Good, religious Jews typically tried to avoid Gentile land. Jesus, however, crisscrossed the Sea of Galilee multiple times. He wanted to reach everyone with the Gospel so to the other side he went!

I love reading about the adventures of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. President Jefferson commissioned Lewis and Clark to find a water route, among other things, that would connect the Pacific Ocean to the Mississippi river for purposes of commerce. Lewis and Clark would explore this new world by boat. They planned on rowing their way to the other side. Makes sense, right? But what happens when you run out of water? This is exactly what happens when they get to the Rocky Mountains. Standing at the top of Lemhi Pass they see immense ranges of high mountains. “The mountains continue as far as our eyes could extend. They extend much farther than we expected – the most terrible mountains I ever beheld,” Lewis wrote.” How do you canoe mountains? Their mental maps no longer worked. New skills needed to be learned. We either go back to what we know, or we continue to canoe without a river. What did they do? They were innovative!

They ditched their canoes for horses.

We still find ourselves in a pandemic hoping that we can get to the other side. Things have changed and are changing, and we do not know what life will look like on the other side. Change has changed. Church has changed. We have adapted. We have pivoted in new ways. Still, there is a lingering tendency and desire to go back…back to the time before this pandemic began. It is easier to know where you are going when you know where you are going. But we cannot go back. We are here now, and besides, something new is dawning, something different is letting loose. When we get to the other side…we will see, we will see. In the meantime, when you run out of water, like Lewis and Clark, what does a person do?

Maybe, just maybe it is time to get some horses!

-- Pastor Marty

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