Dear Friends:

There is a rare place on a Southern California sky island where the black oak, locusts, willows and cottonwood trees change color in October. One has to hike in several miles to a secluded valley to find the gold tinged with orange.

I have retreated there several fall seasons to deal with personal and professional challenges.

My son accompanied me on one of these trips when he was ten-years-old. A father-son hike was a special treat, but I was also lugging a heavy heart over a difficult legal problem with personal and professional implications.

Going to the mountain wasn’t a diversion. I needed space and quiet to wrestle with God over the issues. I believed I needed to do the right thing by taking forceful action. That’s what the circumstances called for and what the persons involved deserved. I was sure of this based on the facts and the law.

Or was I so certain?  The course I was contemplating would surprise and embarrass my adversaries who didn’t even know that they were my adversaries yet. It was possible that my strategy would cost them their jobs and reputations. Necessary and justified as this result might be, it would cause pain and was not something that I could approach lightly. Was I in the right? Did the problem require a “scorched-earth” approach? Were there other options?

These were the questions that I struggled with in my heart as we crossed the creek several times and bushwacked a bit down an overgrown trail. We made it to our goal, the golden canopy and carpet of leaves leading us to a large, deep granite lined pool in the creek. Standing over the pool like a ruined castle was a stone tower built for an aborted hydroelectric project in the 1930’s.

Andrew climbed up to the loft of the tower as I explored the edges of the pool. The creek tumbled into it via a little waterfall over a rock shelf on the upstream end.

A series of those shelves extended out into the pool. I walked out on one. Peering into the water, I saw several good-sized brook trout basking in the shafts of sunlight that poured through the trees and illuminated the sand and pebbles on the creek bottom with exquisite clarity.

There was no wind. My heart beat quieted down from the exertions of the hike. The only sounds were the buzzing of blue dragonflies, the trickle of water on rock, and the faint rasp of Andrew’s jeans on the stone and wood of the tower.

I had come here seeking a word from the Lord, but there was nothing to do but be silent and wait. A snatch of an old hymn from my childhood came to mind.

Be silent, be silent,

For holy this place,

This altar that echoes

The message of grace.

Tread softly, tread softly,

The Master is here,

Tread softly, tread softly,

He bids us draw near.

(Author unknown)

After awhile I moved further out on the shelf taking care for my footing, but my shadow fell across the pool. The wary trout darted under a submerged log, their acceleration leaving plumes of sand behind them.

When my eyes adjusted to the shadows, I could see the trout waiting in quiet suspense in their shaded hiding place, with only a desultory flick of their fins now and then to keep them in place against the gentle current.

Shadows tell us something about the light–its presence or its absence. They can frighten, confuse and deceive us. They can also be a mercy, warning us of approaching trouble and sheltering us from its ravages (Ps 17:8; 36:6-8; 57:1; 63:7; 91:1). It is good to remember that while the Lord leads us through the night with fire, he mercifully guides and covers us with the cloud by day (Num 14:14).

If the Creator in kindness endowed the trout with an instinct for which shadows mean danger and which mean protection, who was I to strip bare his children in harsh judgment? This is not a question my pride-hardened heart wanted to answer, but to insist that I was the one to pass and execute judgment dethroned the Lord in my heart through distrust.

This is not to say that there were not wrongs to be addressed, but I had formed my judgments before seeking the Lord’s wisdom and instruction as a servant and steward. From the Creation, the performance of good in human knowledge and judgment has been deemed as selfish and wrong as is our doing evil out of malice (Gen 2:17).  That is a hard lesson learned by such scriptural luminaries as Jacob, Moses, David, Peter, James and John.

The most difficult temptation to resist is that of doing what seems right to us in our own training, experience and conviction without first inquiring of the Lord and submitting to divine instruction. To act in our own wisdom and execute our own judgments is self-righteousness and spiritual anarchy (Judg 17:6; 20:25). Solomon observed that “There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death” (Pr 14:12).

The prophet Micah struggled with this temptation at a time when society was breaking down with corruption, violence, immorality and the breakdown of families until it seemed to him that “The faithful have disappeared from the land, and there is no one left who is upright” (Mic 7:2). But Micah submitted to the Lord’s judgment and timing.

But as for me, I will look to the Lord,

I will wait for the God of my salvation;

my God will hear me.

. . .

I must bear the indignation of the Lord,

because I have sinned against him,

until he takes my side

and executes judgment for me.

He will bring me out to the light;

I shall see his vindication.

(Mic 7:7,9)

Of course, these scriptural references I studied after I had come down from the mountain. The core principle came to mind watching the trout take flight from my shadow then wait me out until it was safe to come out. The answer to my prayer for guidance was a question — Did I trust the Lord to see that the right be done in his time and in his way?

“But Lord” . . . I began making my lawyer’s arguments for exceptions and exemptions, but I was humbled in his presence in the stillness of the moment. He was right and if I did not agree, I was wrong. There was no middle-ground or third-way.

The Lord is God and I am not. That is the sole principle that compels unconditional surrender when self-righteousness urges me to spiritual vigilantism.

Voices in the woods interrupted my reflection. People were approaching and that was surprising in this remote spot.

I backed away from the pool and went into the stone tower and climbed up to the loft where Andrew was playing. “Let’s be quiet and see who is coming,” I said.

The voices were male and as they came closer through the stream-side thicket, I could make out the conversation and recognized the name of the person they were discussing. He was an attorney and local politician that I knew well. He had won office on a platform of Christian family values, but had recently been found to have been unfaithful to his marriage and the public trust. The men in the woods were pondering the reasons for his self-destructive behavior.

It turns out they were members of a men’s group from a church that was a client of mine. They were on a retreat at a Christian camp and were taking an afternoon hike. Their presence and conversation reinforced the message to me of usurping the Lord’s prerogatives.

Andrew and I said our greetings and started back down the path of golden leaves. The questioning storms in my mind and heart were calmed even though I hadn’t a clue about what would happen next.

The situation that caused me so much urgent concern was resolved over the next two years as the persons involved stopped their undermining and destructive conduct and left the organization. My only role was to wait on the Lord and say “thank you” to him for his justice and mercy.

It is our way in human frailty and desperation to seek permission or answers from the Lord or to ask him to do what we think needs to be done. It is when we reach the place of acceptance that Christ is the answer — that he is not just our example, but our life, not just our Savior, but our salvation, not just holy, but our holiness, not just our teacher, but our wisdom — that we have reached the goal and perspective of true prayer.  That’s when the shadows become light for us.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

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Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.

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Kent Hansen is a Christian attorney, author and speaker. He practices corporate law and is the managing attorney of the firm of Clayson, Mann, Yaeger & Hansen in Corona, California. Kent also serves as the general counsel of Loma Linda University and Medical Center in Loma Linda, California.

Finding God’s grace revealed in the ordinary experiences of life, spiritual renewal in Christ and prayer are Kent’s passions. He has written two books, Grace at 30,000 Feet and Other Unexpected Places published by Review & Herald in 2002 and Cleansing Fire, Healing Streams: Experiencing God’s Love Through Prayer, published by Pacific Press in spring 2007. Many of his stories and essays about God’s encompassing love have been published in magazines and journals. Kent is often found on the hiking trails of the southern California mountains, following major league baseball, playing the piano or writing his weekly email devotional, “A Word of Grace for Your Monday” that is read by men and women from Alaska to Zimbabwe.