A Race to the Bottom
When you’re a tenured Christian, you’ve heard about multiple venues for answered prayers. God is indeed resourceful, and like the flow of water, He effortlessly gets into the smallest cracks. He’s never limited by calendars, geography, or hemispheres. Past, present, and future pose no boundaries. He doesn’t need cars, airplanes, passports, or birth certificates. He truly is everywhere, and He truly does know all of our days before we reach them.
Some fifteen years before I uttered my prayer, God initiated His answer. He’s like that. Isaiah wrote that God hears before we speak; answers before we ask (Isaiah 65:24).
Young and energetic, and having recently moved to Arizona from a big city, I was always up for new challenges.
Quick to organize anything, the task often fell to me to plan something fun and exciting, so one cool morning while doves cooed, perched atop abundant cacti, several of us loaded into cars to embark on a day of mountain climbing.
The day promised to be blistering hot, so we had to start early to get ahead of the heat. Despite our early start, the sun was fully awake and the car’s air conditioner ran at maximum output.
Altitude popped our ears as we wound up the mountain’s two-lane paved road. This peak’s elevation reached 9,200 feet. Boulders often littered the roadway and had shattered the pavement upon impact. Between the ponderosa pines we passed, we could see the city basin below with heat waves already dancing above it. Our engine’s strain eased when we reached a cool enough altitude that we could turn off the air conditioning and lower the windows. The mountain’s fragrance filled the vehicle. I longed to stretch my legs as I thought about my childhood filled with riding trains, buses, taxis, and subways. The city idea of a “trail ride” was to let kids ride saddled horses on streets alongside rush-hour traffic. My new environment surprisingly suited me, and I was open to all possibilities.
This mountain range was becoming familiar to me. I’d already hiked it a few times, but this outing promised a higher trail. On the mountain’s opposite side was a rugged cave for truly adventurous spelunking. It was not the destination for people who were unwilling to crawl in the mud on their bellies through extremely tight spaces. Within days of learning about it, I was facedown in the mud, scraping my back along jagged rock formations. I exited the cave twenty pounds heavier from caked-on mud and was recognizable only by my voice. This caused several waiting novices to change their plans. Personally, I felt my greatest accomplishment wasn’t exploring the intimidating cave, but not losing my hiking boots to the viscous mud and its insatiable appetite for all it touched.
Hours later, we reached our target. It looked rather ordinary instead of the classroom it was to become. I tell people that the view is always worth the climb, whether spiritually or naturally. Only by our commitment to the resistance will we reach the top. The climb delivers the reward.
As the group happily chatted, I scanned the area. We’d never climbed this high before, nearly at the ridge.
Early into the excursion, the terrain became much steeper than we expected and all but two less experienced climbers abandoned the journey. My friend and I pressed on well past the semblance of a trail until our passage narrowed sharply. Undeterred, we exited the tree line with unobstructed views of the glistening city. The altitude’s beauty made me feel closer to God, not realizing how much I was about to need Him.
Our first dilemma was when we came to a ledge along the mountain’s face that was only two feet wide, but widened again twenty-five feet ahead. Evaluating the discovery, we continued. The mountain above and below this ledge was sheer; however, the lower portion sloped somewhat and was covered completely in loose rocks.
My friend took the lead and told me to follow her footsteps. I did, but suddenly the ledge gave way and I slid down the mountainside. A lovely day of escaping the heat was now a life-threatening situation.
Because the surface beneath me was loose shale of various sizes, it actually increased my speed as I slid downward. The land surrounding this barren swath grew abundant pine trees, but not a stem or root grew where I was plummeting. It was a race to the bottom, and I already knew I wasn’t going to win.
I’m always amazed at how people describe such situations as going in slow motion. I believe God wires us this way to give opportunity for solutions. I, too, had this experience. Only I used the long seconds to unleash the greatest power handed to humankind: Prayer.
All nineteen years of me asked the Almighty to be almighty. I had no chance of survival on my own. Even if I made it through whatever tragedy lay before me, I’d have a five-hour journey to a hospital. Being airlifted was unrealistic because I was literally on the side of a mountain. If the rocks didn’t filet me after shredding my thin clothes, at some point something yet unseen would stop me.
No longer able to hear my friend’s screams, I implored God to solve this physics problem. It wasn’t the temporary prayer for deliverance with empty promises of lifetime service, but the sincere cries of a redeemed child to her heavenly Father, who’d granted another opportunity to prove himself faithful on her behalf.
As suddenly as I’d lost my footing and begun to pray, God did what God does best, and turned an earthly situation into a divine classroom.
Although I dug my heels into the shale, they failed to slow my ever-increasing speed. On my back, I continued scanning the surrounding landscape, hoping for something to grab. I prayed for any intervention to stop me.
I’d tried moving to the right and left, hoping it would create friction and reduce my speed. I crossed my arms and hands over my chest in an effort to protect them.
Desperately analyzing my situation, I finally visualized what was going to stop me. Jagged, sharp boulders formed a natural wall in all directions. They were impossible to avoid and a horrific collision lay just ahead. Unless God performed the miraculous, death was imminent, putting a definite wrinkle in my peace. I couldn’t even fathom the pain upon impact.
Preparing for the worst, I suddenly saw a green dot enlarging as I approached and realized it was a plant that could rescue me. Some spring day, years earlier, God had caused a little windblown seed to take root on a mountainside, and despite rockslides and severe weather, it thrived until we met.
I began steering my speeding body toward the bush, hoping to crash into it instead of the boulders. With seconds left to maneuver into its path, I realized my “bush” was actually a wild prickly pear cactus covered with three-inch spike needles.
You’ve got to be kidding!
I rose up, slamming my entire body against the unconventional rescuer, grabbing it with all my remaining strength.
Then I screamed.
This was not Moses’ burning bush, but I was delivered just the same. Had it been any other type of vegetation, it could not have survived on that mountainside. It had to be a tenacious cactus to endure its commission.
I came to a grinding halt and slowly peeled myself from that anchor. Crawling to the boulders just feet away, I discovered the road was on the other side, fifteen feet below. Had I survived the impact of smacking against the boulders, I’d have flipped over the steep embankment and potentially been run over by a car.
God answered numerous prayers that afternoon while He spared my life. Miraculously, my worst injuries were from cactus needles. The surface of the mountainside should have peeled me like a banana, broken several bones, and left me with severe internal injuries, but I sustained no injuries from sliding down the rocks, unprotected, at breakneck speed.
I learned our prayers are often answered in ways we’re not expecting; however, He will always answer them.
Every single one of them—before we even ask.