It’s not the quiet ‘in’ the woods. Rather, it’s the quiet ‘of’ the woods. For I don’t want quiet to be ‘in’ me. Like the woods, I want it to be ‘of’ me. And I have found that few things can instill that in me like the woods can.

Sometimes the path is hidden by the foliage that surrounds us, the trees that have fallen all around us, and the winds that whip the wilderness wild. And while the foliage and the trees and the winds might hide that precious path for a moment, we must remember that God birthed each of us with a destination so utterly amazing that no wilderness possesses the foliage, or the trees, or the winds to ever destroy the path to that destination.

Why is it that we don’t worry about a compass until we’re lost in a wilderness of our own making?

Each summer’s night the woods abound with sounds. And I always thought how wonderful it was that nature sings even when it’s asleep.

How long must we wander through the wilderness of our arrogance before we acknowledge the existence of the wilderness and confess the fact that we’re lost in it? And if such a posture of humility is beyond us, the woods will grow and a way out of them will not.

To incessantly define ‘where we’re at’ as a means of convincing ourselves that we know ‘where we’re at’ suggests that we’re lost about being lost. And while the wilderness of life is teeming with these kinds of people, I have to make certain that I never enter the woods.