On a recent hike, conversation slowly fell away, and what remained was silence.
A big part of hiking is noticing.
It’s early January. Snow still lingers from the New Year’s Eve storm, untouched in places; smooth and white, unbroken by footprints. Evergreen rhododendron leaves push through it, dark and glossy against the pale ground.
Isolated in our own hushed moments, my companion and I take separate paths toward the water’s edge.
I perch on soaked rock, navigating ice as I make my way as close as possible to this sight. Water leaps with full abandon from a rocky precipice some twelve feet high, cooling my already chilled nose with its misty blast. This valley is deep and still shaded in the morning hours. A shiver runs through me as I close my eyes and suddenly feel the warmth of the sun on my face, contrasting the chill of early winter that forms bumps on my skin. The roar of the falling water is deafening, yet it quiets my heart.
I shift my weight and brace my balance on a nearby rock, eyes glued now to the rainbow formed by the mist and the sun.
Aware that my friend was near, but worlds away.
Aware of an ache to dive into the water, but much afraid.
Aware that I should linger, but unable to keep still.
My eyes move back and forth — water, rock, trees, sky. Back again.
A rainbow hangs where mist meets sunlight. I look away quickly.
A Promise?
I tell myself it’s only physics.
The water keeps falling with seeming indifference.
I think of a line from a book about water surrendering to the plunge.
Is that me?
The rock doesn’t answer. It never moves.
Except it does. Slowly. Over time.
The roots of the trees hold the hill in place. Roots unhidden.
If they let go, everything would slide.
The water keeps falling.
A cloud passes in front of the warm sun and snaps me back.
How long have I stood here?
Where is my friend?
Should we be heading back?
The water keeps falling.
The rock keeps holding.
Both true.
Neither yielding.
I feel it again — that pull toward certainty, and the equal pull toward surrender. Wanting to stand firm. Wanting to leap. Wanting the promise without the plunge.
This is the tension I never quite escape.
The Kingdom I claim to belong to speaks this way, too — in opposites that refuse to sort themselves out. A Lion who rules, a Lamb who sacrifices. A King who reigns, a Shepherd who kneels. Life, promised in abundance, yet daily, death asks for its place.
And here I am, perched in the middle, mist on my face, rainbow in the air, standing between two ends that refuse to be reconciled. I want the clarity of the rock, but I ache for the abandon of the water. And somehow, the Kingdom asks me to hold both at once.
This may be what it means to walk in faith: witness without resolution. Surrender without certainty.
And somehow, if I stay here long enough, if I let the tension remain without trying to reconcile it, I begin to see that this kingdom life, though exhausting, is not broken. It is exactly what God designed for a heart that cannot rest until it knows ALL of Him.
The Rod and the Staff.
The Root and the Offspring.
The Lion and the Lamb.
The Beginning and the End.
The Rock and the Water.
Surrender and Security.
Ice and mud.
Mountain and valley.
Wilderness and Promised Land.
One step at a time, I push forward, boots slipping on ice, sinking into mud, warmth on my face, chill on my hands—feeling the weight of what is and the ache for what is promised.
This is the dichotomy of the Kingdom.
The NOW and the NOT YET.
