Another Blog on Stillness

God continues to surprise us with His incomprehensible love, the love we try to fit in a box and make sense of. He individually pursues us in various forms that often astounds us, sometimes with people and sometimes by putting us back in the places we thought we would never go again. Betsy Floyd was a Beyond participant in 2010. She decided to come back this summer to serve on base camp staff as assistant cook. Little did she know God's pursuit did not stop just at base camp but extended to the mountains as well. 

At a recent bible study in basecamp, we were asked to draw a picture that depicts our relationship with God. In the one minute I was given for the task, a megaphone sounding off into a slightly “Dumboesque” ear was pried from my subconscious. My explanation was that God was the ear and I was the megaphone: loud and jarring, sending crazed, aperiodic sound waves into space, hoping an ear was out there listening, no sense of peace or stillness to be found. A few weeks before this drawing, I was summoned to join a trip up JJ. At the end of the second day of hiking we dragged our sorry selves to our campsite: the illustrious Sun City. Enclosed in the arms of the surrounding mountains was a large granite area splitting an aquamarine glacier pool in two. The sun was merely a willing aid, illuminating the gradient hues of the pools and its reflection of the peaks. This is one of those sights where I wondered how few people in this world get to see something as raw and beautiful as Sun City. Shortly after arriving, I laid down for a nap, letting the sun warm my chapped face. Obliterated from the hiking, the usual barrage of my thoughts was absent. No pleading or demanding, no thanking, nothing. The sun’s rays filtered gold through my eyelids as my body slowly relaxed and melted into the rock. I began to feel that strange and tangible peace that comes only from the submission to stillness. I perceive this state as a sacred realm, intimate and of God. In this realm, God’s message is clear and convicting. 

Sun City

In my day-to-day life, I find that what I say and what is understood by others are often two different things. Not a rare phenomenon by any means, but daily experiences of not being heard slowly feed into a sense of desperation to feel understood. This is why I talk at God so often. The beauty of being still is that it often leads to a position of listening for God. As one listens, the desperation begins to slip away. Sitting in stillness on that rock at Sun City reminded me that only God can truly understand and respond to me in the uniquely meaningful way my heart desires. But first I need to stop talking and be still. It is in this place, I will be open to that which I have been longing to hear. 

Betsy Floyd

Diving into the Depths

One of my favorite reasons why I love being at Beyond Malibu is the opportunity to people watch. Not the kind of people watching you would do at Disneyland or at the mall at Christmas time, but the opportunity to watch people grow. This summer I was placed in a community of believers in all different areas of their walk with Christ. Paige Kantor, one of the amazing Pack Shack ladies, is one of those people I have been blessed to see grow in her walk with the Lord as she experiences Him in the inlet this summer.

The following is a reflection of my time here at basecamp: 

God’s love for us is deep; trying to understand it is like trying to dive down into the depths of the Princess Louisa inlet that leads to basecamp. I deeply desire to dive into the water, touch the bottom, and come back up with a rock, proving that the bottom is there and that I have the ability to grasp its depth. On the way down my ears begin to hurt; the pressures of the water makes me feel like my brain might explode. Eventually, I’ll run out of air. When I come up with the prized rock, I won’t be afraid to show it off. The people close to me will see the proof that I had the courage to dive down deep enough to find treasure, which is just a small glimpse of what the bottom actually looks like. This treasure is a flash of the miles and miles of ocean floor on this planet, yet we are easily impressed with a single stone.

In the same way, the vastness of God’s love for us is incomprehensible. His love stretches on for eternity and beyond what is imaginable. I cannot fathom the depth of it, yet I will continue to dive down in hopes of catching a small glimpse of this Love. And after reaching the bottom I may even be able to share the treasure of His love with a few others.

    

I won’t be at Beyond forever, but God’s love surrounds me everywhere I go. I am reminded of it as I look into the trees and the mountains, which seem to go on forever. The waterfalls that rush down the mountains in a peaceful consistent rhythm are reminiscent of God’s constant love for us. The birds exemplify how God provides the wind we need to carry us and the branches we need to find rest on. I enjoy how the sunshine beams down warming our spirits and how the seals bask in creation. The bioluminescence is yet another indication of God’s indescribable creativity and that He surprises us with gifts we don’t deserve. I only have a few days left in the Princess Louisa inlet, but a lifetime of exploring God’s creation. Thanks be to The Lord, my Father in Heaven, for reminding me that I am loved deeply and that if I trust Him, He will bring me to places of peace and reflection. He brings me to places, like Beyond, that I never imagined to exist. Beyond Malibu is a small glimpse of God’s love for me, a small treasure I will carry with me forever. It has felt like a flash of time in which I’ve experienced the depths of His love and the fluid movements of His Holy Spirit. In the end, I hope to have the chance to share this experience with a few others, to describe what it has been like to live in God’s presence. Maybe they too will be eager to experience it themselves, and will desire to dive deep into the wonder of God and the beautiful creation He has placed us in.

Paige Kantor

The Unsuspecting Follower

Forrest, a first year sea kayak guide, enjoys creating poems inspired by his time here at Beyond Malibu. His poem, "The Unsuspecting Follower", is a reflection from his time on the waters and in the mountains.

The Unsuspecting Follower

Through a dark broken world

That seems too evil, to be prone

Not knowing who to trust

We wander lost and alone.

Can we trust in ourselves

In our own strength and mind?

The answer we must learn

So we leave to try and find.

We go beyond our own limits

To test ourselves there,

To a place that is wild,

Undefiled, bursting with clean air

But we find ourselves lacking

In need of a Guide

And if we simply just ask

We find a Guide at our side,

A Guide that has been there

Every water, every mountain, every stream,

And with our Guide at our side

The world is different than it would seem.

Yes the world is still broken

And we often lose our way

But our Guide is with us always

Our path He helps stay

And we wonder why we never

Noticed Him from the start.

Sometimes we must go beyond

To find Him in our heart

                                     

                             Forrest Henrichs