The Exodus Altar

This past weekend, I went hiking with two friends. We hit the dust at 7am, venturing to the coast of Laguna Beach, the Pacific Ocean bashfully greeting us beneath swirling molasses of white fog.

It actually wasn’t my first time hitting those hilly coastal trails.

Two months prior, I hiked at this very location with 15 other guys. 15 courageous inspiring men who mean the world to me though I hardly even “knew” most of them, really. I met many of those guys and re-met a few at this summer’s final Exodus Conference.

The day after the conference ended, we embarked on an inspiring 5-mile hike that included uplifting conversation and spiritual lessons alike. Midway through the hike, our trip leader told a couple of us to start carrying rocks while we hiked.

Yes, rocks. And these weren’t exactly pebbles, mind you. They were five- to ten-pound stones that felt more like boulders after you carried them 20 feet up a crooked hill.

Rocks aren’t pleasant to carry while hiking. And yet after shouldering the load for a few minutes, we were told to pass our “burdens” to another brother. And then he would carry the burden another few minutes before the next burden-exchange.

You follow?

When it was my turn, I carried the burden for as long as I could — and then a fellow brother took my burden from me. And I felt so very relieved.

That’s life. We all struggle; we all need help. Rather than shoulder the load alone, we’re to share in one another’s burdens.

That’s the Church, whether inside a common homosexual struggle or out. This same spiritual concept was illustrated just as powerfully at that sit-in-a-circle and share-your-story episode from the conference (my favorite part of the Exodus conference).

Yes, writing about that Exodus hike makes it sound like a cheesy Christianese exercise, though I promise the moment itself was anything but campy. You can read a more thorough analysis of that Exodus hike at this guy’s amazing blog, complete with an awesome group photo.

See if you can find This Fish Guy in the mix:

Now, flash-forward two months later to me and my friends hiking this very same trail. We wanted to hike somewhere awesome, so I pitched the idea to return to this magical place on the coast.

I told my friends about the burden-carrying Exodus exercise and joked that we could do it ourselves, though we ultimately opted against adding any further “burdens” to an already devastating summer sun.

As we hiked the 5-mile loop, I remembered those rocky burdens from earlier in the summer. Remembered the hills and the heat and the hard hike it was.

But, somehow, I forgot the single most triumphant aspect of that Exodus hike.

My two friends and I were approaching the end of our loop, and then I saw it. Saw it towering from the side of the trail clearer than the Pacific Ocean on a fog-free day:

It was our altar. You see, toward the end of that Exodus hike, our leader told us to set our rocks down in a heap, and we dedicated that spot as an altar to God’s faithfulness.

After all, that’s what the Israelites did in the Old Testament – they wandered, God provided, and they built altars to memorialize God’s provision.

I’ve always loved this passage from Joshua 4:

When all the nation had finished passing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, 2 “Take twelve men from the people, from each tribe a man, 3 and command them, saying, ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests’ feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight.’” 4 Then Joshua called the twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. 5 And Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, 6 that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ 7 then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.”

“What do these stones mean to you?” Chills.

While building the altar itself was no doubt an act of worship to an all-powerful, all-providing God, it’s the Israelites’ ensuing story of the altar that has always fascinated me.

Their Jordan River altar wasn’t just a one-time thing; it was built to remember God’s faithfulness, forever and ever. Whenever the Israelites passed that altar in the months and years to come, they specifically remembered what God did there. How He delivered them.

The altar gave them a concrete story to tell their children, who could then tell the same saving story to the next generation upon the next after that.

I almost lost it when I unsuspectingly became a wandering Israelite myself while hiking past that Exodus altar. The same altar I helped construct two months prior.

Throughout this past weekend’s hike with my friends, I’d remembered the hardship of carrying those rocks, but I’d totally forgotten the relief and significance of setting them down alongside a beautiful band of brothers.

I’d remembered the burden, but I’d forgotten the faithfulness. And yet there it still was, eyeing me from the side of a mountain trail atop a foggy Pacific Ocean – an altar built by brothers who shared one another’s burdens for five miles.

It was an altar of victory and brotherhood, still standing two months later. A reminder of a faithful God who never gives up on His kids, physical and spiritual hardships included.

As the hike started, I thought I’d be in for a fun day of Exodus nostalgia while hiking a breathtaking trail with some dear friends. But I never considered the spiritual revelations — the heart-twisting reminder that God is and will forever be faithful in this winding life’s journey.

Struggles and all.