By Eddie Kwon, 07/07/21
This past week on my way home from visiting our members in Texas and Las Vegas, my friends and I stopped by Zion National Park in Utah to go hiking and to experience landscape not present anywhere else in the world.
We had heard that, after COVID travel restrictions had been lifted, many people were coming from all over America to vacation at the park. So in order to enjoy the hike properly, we woke up early Wednesday morning to take the shuttle to one of the most popular hikes in the entire park, The Angels Landing trail.
Sure enough, the line waiting to get to the trailhead easily took over 50 minutes and when we got there many people were already making their way up the 5.5-mile round trip hike. The highlight of this trail is a .5 mile upwards incline at the end where people climb up an extremely narrow and steep canyon cliff overlooking the entire park.
When we finally climbed up to the top of Angel’s Landing the view was breathtaking. At this time the weather was quickly heating up and easily broke 100°F, but Everyone around us who had taken on the challenging chain was so engrossed in the view that awaited us that the sweltering heat was only a minor inconvenience.
For everyone there, it was apparent that they had come from all over the world in order to get away from their struggles and to escape civilization in order to experience something unadulterated, something raw and something MUCH larger than life.
For myself, when I had originally decided to tag along with my friends on their trip to Zion it was in order to find a ride home on my way back from Texas. I didn’t plan on accompanying them on many of their hikes here and when I first heard about the chain-link hike up the narrow cliffside I was against the idea of coming along. However, when I got there I wanted to see if there might be something I should learn or experience at the top of the mountain. Ironically enough the mountain’s name is ZION so I didn’t want to exclude the possibility that God might want to speak to me during my trip.
So when our group made it to the top I spent some time praying to see and ask God if there’s something I should realize or see or hear while up at the very peak.
However, there wasn’t any sort of profound realization or experience that came at the top, and after spending some time enjoying the scenery, our group went down the mountain. With this, the first full day at Zion National Park ended and we prepared for the next day.
While everyone else was relaxing back at the Airbnb I took the time to listen to the Sunday Message for this week. This past Saturday we had observed the united high school Sunday Service and had stayed up until 3:30AM partying and listening to the message for the SS. As a result, I slept through the general service time and wasn’t able to hear the message intended for the general audience.
You will receive the Lord only if you prepare with faithfulness and Wisdom
The message title was: Prepare with Faithfulness and Wisdom. And the scriptures told us that: You will receive the Lord only if you prepare with faithfulness and Wisdom. The message that was delivered was very different from the SS Sunday Message and in it the preacher shared that as people live their lives unexpected things happen to them. As a parable, unexpected things come and happen like a thief that comes in the night. A thief doesn’t tell you when they’re coming. In the same way, unexpected things happen in people’s lives. If something happens to you it’s not because God didn’t tell you about it but it’s because you didn’t prepare and get ready for it.
Similarly too, when God comes to people he appears like a thief as mentioned in Matthew 24; 1 Thessalonians 5:2; Revelation 16:15. For The people who are not ready, that day will always come upon that person like a thief.
The preacher asked us:
“Does he appear only one time? You can’t live with him all the time either. You separate and meet, separate and meet. So in the time that you are separate let’s prepare well so that when we receive him we can be ready. When you meet him at that time one of two things will happen. You will either receive blessings or receive judgment.”
Then he went on to share that :
“Even today you are meeting them, it’s just that you couldn’t see them. Do you think just because you don’t see them today that they aren’t here? During important events like Olympics, and major events the Presidents and the important people are always there. God is in the key place of Providence. In the key place, the original being is there.”
After listening to the message I realized in a shocking way how God is with us all the time but that we have to make the preparations to meet him. This made me wonder if I had listened to the message BEFORE going on the hike could I have prayed and prepared better to receive God? Whatever the case may be, this hike, this message, and this experience made me realize how I need to be ready to receive the Trinity and the Lord when they want to come and speak.
The Physical ends with just the Physical.
On the way down from Angel’s Landing, we saw many people getting back on the shuttle to head home after an early and exhausting morning hike. Everyone on the bus was completely wiped out and I saw looks of physical and mental fatigue on the riders’ faces. Now that the splendor of the view was gone and the effect of the environment had worn off the heat was overcoming everyone’s willpower and everyone seemed keen on getting home.
From this, I really thought about how fleeting our experiences are. Just 30 minutes ago everyone on the shuttle was overlooking what was one of the greatest views of nature that you’d find anywhere on the planet. However, the moment that they came down the mountain the feeling was gone. The reality was, that after going home, most of the people would resume their normal lives and this trip would be one that would be lost to the recesses of their distant memory.
Most of these people will continually try to fill the constantly emptying bowl of their contentment with different experiences and fleeting indulgences. And as I looked around at the people in the bus I realized that the physical ends with just the physical.
Zion National Park
No matter how great of an experience something is, it’s not something that sustains us for a long time. As such, people chase experience after experience, stimuli after stimuli. One of the members who did lecture training with me on Thursday said something that resonated with how I was thinking then when he said: “Even if you’re body is in Heaven if you’re heart is in sin and your heart is bound you will never be free.”
God saves us in the Monsoon
During this same period, the Lord had given the message on the topic of Monsoons and the dangers of water in areas with torrential rains. This last week we had seen footage of monsoons sweeping through Japan and decimating rural buildings and farmlands. Normally, in Northern California rain typically comes during the winter season, and as such summer monsoons aren’t something we’re concerned with. But amazingly during the exact week when monsoons were being mentioned in the message I was in Zion where torrential rains had struck the week before and a national weather services announcement told us that the event of monsoon was probable during our stay. While the others weren’t as greatly concerned as I was, because the message itself told us to be wary of monsoons and the aware of the dangers of fast-moving water, I prayed that nothing would happen to us during our stay.
Then on the third day of our stay, everyone was tired out from the extensive hikes in the heat during the last two days so we decided to go on a scenic drive through Zion and the nearby canyons instead. While we were driving towards the Canyon we drove through unfamiliar roads where the speed limit was changing constantly. We also noticed that there were what appeared to be heavy rain clouds over the Park that we were seeing for the first time during our trip. As the roads changed surreptitiously from the highway to the local town area, the speed limit changed without warning. Suddenly we were going 60 mph in a 40 mph zone and almost immediately we saw the flash of red and blue lights going off behind us.
None of us really knew what to say so we just pulled over and greeted the Utah state officer that pulled up next to us. He asked our friend who was driving to come back with him to the police car and so the rest of us sat with bated breaths as we waited for the verdict. During this time I prayed that nothing major would happen and that if possible that this could be God’s work instead of unfortunate circumstance.
After a 3 minute period that felt like an hour, we saw our friend walk back towards the car. When he came back in he broke out in a smile and reported excitedly that the officer had let him go with a warning. We were all excited and relieved that nothing had happened. The officer told my friend that if he had been going 30 miles over the speed limit he would have had to go to the county jail and the car would have been impounded over the weekend. As if that weren’t amazing enough, the friend who was driving today isn’t the primary owner of the vehicle, and the original owner had recently received a speeding ticket while traveling in Seattle a couple of weeks prior and had been convicted to take online traffic school. If he had been the driver instead then the officer would probably have to cite him and take him in for a second infraction in a completely different state.
While we were discussing all this I told my friends that I had really prayed for the driver, and prayed that nothing unfortunate would happen as a result of getting pulled over. With this, we resumed our drive back towards the canyon while reflecting on the events that had happened.
Right as we got back on the highway the driver’s phone’s amber alert went off and we saw that there was an immediate monsoon warning at Zion National Park, and the National Parks Service was telling everyone to immediately exit or seek cover as flash floods could sweep through the park. With this, I was so convinced that God had saved us and that if we had not been pulled over we would have entered the park and would not have received the warning in time. When we consider all the circumstances God really saved our lives in a miraculous way.
I shared this with my friends and they somewhat believed it and somewhat didn’t. It seemed like there were really grateful for the turn of events, but at the same time, they didn’t think that being pulled over was a positive occurrence. More than anything I saw that even with how shocking the series of events had been they were content with just going back to living as they had before the events had happened.
From this, I saw that we really need salvation not just in the body but in the spirit and in the mind. Just like how people chase after experiences and stimuli because they forget the things they’ve experienced, they didn’t really realize the value of what they received.
No matter how God saves their lives people forget these experiences and don’t change even though our bodies are saved. Our bodies and physical experiences aren’t enough to free us. Trying to fill the hole in your heart with physical experiences is like trying to fill a cup with a hole. You have the freedom and the choice.
Life by the Spirit
Galatians 5 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh[a]; rather, serve one another humbly in love.… flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit.
The Lord told us that in Sodom people ate and drank until destruction came and they were destroyed. So don’t do as they did. Luke 21:34 “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap.”
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