Dream BIG

I recently read "The Circle Maker". The author Mark Batterson talks about dreaming big and praying hard.  This book rocked my world.  I often underline segments of books that really stand out to me.  Most of this book is underlined.

Today's post was inspired by a conversation I had with a friend. We were sharing struggles that we are currently facing. I hung up the phone - I felt refreshed, hopeful, and felt prompted to write about it. So here goes...

A hundred things spoke directly to me in this book, but the first was: "we should praise God for disappointment because it drives us to our knees." This reminded me that I need to rely on him for everything.  When things are good it's easy to forget this. We start to take care of things on our own. But you know the vicious cycle as well as I do - we get burnt out, stressed out, and are overwhelmed. Then what?  

A game changer for me was the following line: "stop praying and start praising Him for what He was about to do."  Now this is one line taken from a long story, I don't want to imply stop praying, that's not the answer.  The point I want to emphasize is praise God before He answers your prayers. Praise Him for what He is going to do. I love that. I have started doing that. And let me tell you, you will have peace that surpasses all understanding.

"There is nothing God loves more than keeping promises, answering prayers, performing miracles, and fulfilling dreams. That is who He is. That is what He does."  Wow. What an awesome God we serve.

I love The Message version of Ephesians 3:20 -

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! 

That brings us to a topic I am very passionate about, Dreaming BIG.

I love positive, encouraging quotes. I always have. I have scrapbooks I made in my early teens that are full of famous quotes. Today I surround myself with them. I have scripture hanging on our fridge, quotes written on sticky notes attached to my computer, encouraging notes from friends in my bedroom.  These are reminders for me "If God is for us, who can be against us?" -Romans 8:31

It is really hard for me to narrow down my favorite Circle Maker lines, so here are a few for you ponder.

"Drawing prayer circles isn't about proving yourself to God; it's about giving God an opportunity to prove Himself to you. Just in case you have forgotten - and to ensure that you always remember - God is for you."

"a big dream is a dream that is bigger than you. In other words, it's beyond your human ability to accomplish."

"if you keep trying, you are not failing. The only way you can fail is if you quit trying."

"I have no idea what the future holds, but I know who holds the future."

In the last chapter the author shares his "Life Goal List". "Your life goal list will include goals that are big and small. It will include goals that are short-term and long-term. But I have one piece of advise: Make sure you have a few BHAGs on the list. You need some God-sized goals that qualify as crazy. Here's why: big goals turn us into big people."

My favorite definition of crazy is: intensely enthusiastic; passionately excited.

That is how I want to live my life.  I pray that God will give me dreams this year that are crazier than the year before.

I write all of this from Utah. Well done God. Well done.

~

Obviously I would highly recommend reading the book or at least watching the video online.

Also, Mosaic Church recently did a series on The Circle Maker.  Watch online here.

Under "Series" look for The Circle Maker.  Watch "Shameless Audacity" first :)

What are you dreaming for this year?  I would love to hear your story.  StephanieHuxter@gmail.com

Hiking with the (other) Huxters - in Bryce Canyon

I’m running out of superlatives.  There are only so many you know.  At some point I am going to have to start repeating myself – there is simply too much scenery here that requires far too many words like “awesome” and “amazing” to accurately describe it.

I was struck with this realization as I sat down to write about Bryce Canyon.  Let it suffice to say that it was so breathtaking, and so overwhelming (so bom-diggity?  Have I used that one yet?), that we are seriously considering naming our second male child Bryce*.

(*Understanding of course that: a) we haven’t quite got child number one out of the way yet, b) by putting this in writing I’ve basically guaranteed us a house full of girls, and c) if and when we get to boy number two we will have probably forgotten that we once thought Bryce was a pretty cool name. )

Still reading?  Good.  In that case I won’t push my luck with too much yappity yap and get right to the photos.  Here are a couple.

Who’s the old fogeys in the photo you ask?  Hey, be nice! That’s my folks!  Good ‘ol Mom and Dad Huxter.  They were in town for the week visiting us from Newfoundland - and since nobody ever really knows where Newfoundland is, we’ve included a map for you below…

Yes that IS a long way away.  Yes that IS really far north.  Yes it IS cold there.  No I did NOT grow up in an igloo.  No we did NOT have a polar bear as a pet!  (Oh stop - now you are just being silly... we had a pet moose of course, like most people.)

My folks pretty much rock.  Apologies to anyone who has lame parents, because mine are the bomb.  We had a hoot travelling around with them, hiking, sight-seeing, playing cards and (though you wouldn’t guess by looking at them) eating pie.  Lot’s of pie.

One little known (and totally awesome) fact about the state of Utah is that the people here apparently love pie.  There’s pie everywhere!   Apple, cherry, rhubarb, strawberry, chocolate, banana cream… you ask for it – they got it*.  (*Except pumpkin.  Much to my father’s dismay, nobody has pumpkin pie.  Nobody.)  Pull into any small town anywhere and you’ve got half a dozen choices for pie, each one advertising that they are the best in town.  One even claimed to be the “Worlds Best Pie”!  Can you believe it? The best in the whole world.  Including the moon.

(Editor’s note, as of press time, the International Pie Tribunal is still withholding their final ruling as to whether or not this small gas station in Rock Pile, Utah does in fact have the “best” pie in the history of the world. )

Ok, enough about pie.  Back to Bryce Canyon.  Here’s another photo.

Pea sixed brain can’t comprehend what you are looking at? Good.  So it’s not just me.  Maybe it was the elevation (the park sits at about 9000 ft) but staring at this view for a long time doesn’t make it easier to grasp, it makes it harder.

The story goes that this enormous canyon filled with thousands and thousands of these “hoodoos” (a.k.a. freaky shaped spires of multicolored sandstone) was formed by some freak accident of water eroding through the softer lower rock layers leaving the harder rock layers perched at the top…but who cares?  They are awesome.  Anyone who comes here, and doesn’t immediately believe in some greater being who wants to show us how awesome he is (especially at building sand castles) has got rocks in their head.

We drove the 18 mile “scenic drive” (understatement of the century) around the rim of the canyon, stopping at a dozen or more view points, each one more baffling than the last.  Then we took a short 3 mile hike down into the canyon through the hoodoos.  They look even crazier up close.

Suffice to say that if any of you get a chance to make it out here we are taking you to Bryce Canyon. It is not an optional part of the itinerary.  Can’t make it until winter?  No problem!  Imagine how neat this will look with snow on it!  We’d probably spend every weekend for the next 6 months backpacking here, but at 9000 ft it is quite chilly in the evenings so we are limited to day hikes. With the snow coming soon even those will get more and more difficult as the weeks go by.   Booooo!

Up next… Miscellaneous photos!  (More interesting than it sounds. Fine, I’ll work on a better title…)

3 Days in the Escalante River Canyon

Who has two arms, likes taking self-portraits, and enjoys hiking deep into the desert and sleeping in a tiny tent?  This chick!

Fortunately (for me) that chick is my adorable wife, and since I have also suffer from a pretty serious backpacking obsession, that makes me a very lucky man!  This weekend we finally got the chance to indulge our backpacking fetish in a very remote part of the world called the Escalante River Canyon.

How remote you ask?  I’m glad you did.  The Escalante River wasn’t even discovered until 1872, making it the last major river discovered in the contiguous United States.  Even today, along it’s entire 90 mile length, only one bridge crosses it.  Simply known as the Highway 12 Bridge, it wasn’t built until 1935 making Boulder, UT one of the last communities in the United States to gain automobile access.

(Before I get to the hike I have to tell you about the drive there.  As a man, I cannot admit to getting excited about fall foliage, but I can say this: The mountain views of the bright yellow aspens on a backdrop of dark pine trees, black lava rocks and red canyon walls were pretty much redonkulous.  This part of the world is just silly beautiful.  It continually amazes you - even when you aren’t looking for it.)

Our hike started in the tiny town of Escalante (population 797) where we left our car behind the cemetery and hiked down a dusty dirt path to the mouth of the canyon.  From there it was a very twisty 15 miles to that one bridge on Highway 12.

How twisty you ask? Good question! The Escalante River has been called “The Crookedest River in the World”.  And while that may be difficult to prove, let’s just all agree that it was pretty darn crookedy.

Why did we pick it from all the awesome hiking choices in the area?  Excellent query!  Partly because it fit all of our “must haves” – a babbling brook, awesome scenery, and a lack of other humans.  And partly because this canyon (amazingly) still lies outside any National Park meaning we could bring Maggie along - who has been pretty miffed about being left at home on previous hikes.

And so off we went.  Three days, two nights, and everything we need to survive strapped to our backs. Not even Maggie gets a free ride.  She carries her own food, bowl, and her wee lil’ boots in her very own doggie backpack.

Once again, the scenery was spectacular.  The canyon with it’s crazy high cliffs in crazy colors, twisting back and forth on itself so you can never see more than a few hundred feet ahead or behind.  The bottom of the canyon a garden of grassy fields, sculpted rocks, and huge green and yellow cottonwood trees along an ankle deep stream – perfect for hiking in.

The first day we hiked in about 4 miles, passing possibly the coolest campsite either of us had ever seen.  A huge alcove (a.k.a. shallow cave) a hundred feet high, a hundred feet deep and hundreds of feet wide carved into the sandstone.  Pictographs made by the ancient Anasazi people - who also must have also camped here - decorated the back wall. Unfortunately it had already been claimed by other backpackers (the only ones we saw all weekend).

And so we headed on down canyon, soon finding an idyllic spot of our own in an open field by the river surrounded by massive cliffs on all sides.

Day two we continued down the canyon another 7 miles or so, past more incredible scenery, stumbling across more prehistoric wall art.

The real highlight of the trip was where we stopped to camp the second night on a sharp hairpin turn in the river.   The inside of the bend was a wide soft sandy beach backed by towering green and yellow cottonwood trees.   The outside of the bend was a sheer, smooth, concave, pink colored cliff - curving around us and over our heads to a dizzying height.  From the topo map it looks to be about 500 feet high – or about a 50 story building.

Day three was a final 4 miles as the canyon widened.  More wading in the stream and hiking through grassy meadows between the canyon walls.  As a final highlight, we passed two huge natural arches, one of which had the remains of an ancient Anasazi home built high into the cliff below the arch.  How they got up there, how they built it, and how it is still standing (even the wooden roof is still intact!) makes my face twitch just thinking about it.

... and finally the fantastic drive home.

Up next… Hiking with the Huxters!  (The other Huxters!)