An experience last year in the Rocky Mountains in the western United States showed me once again how close God is to us. I decided to go to the mountains that I love for a brief stay. One of my excursions involved a location I had never visited before, and a family member gave me a map showing a mountain road that led up to a beautiful lake.

I set out in my car, and the higher I went, the more rugged the road became, with a cliff edge on one side and a wall of rock on the other. When the road became a footpath, I had to very carefully turn the car around and drive a bit back down the mountain so I could park and then hike up the last one and a half miles to the lake. I started out hiking in the heat, even though I had brought no water with me. Not good planning, I know, but I hadn’t envisioned the need to hike, much less on very steep terrain and at such a high altitude!

I hadn’t gotten very far at all when I began to experience difficulty breathing, exhaustion, and other disturbing symptoms. I could barely keep standing or put one foot in front of the other. I thought, “This is a foolish thing to be doing,” and started to go back down the trail to my car. But my next thought was, “Wait a minute. I love this beauty and activity, and as long as I ‘wait upon the Lord,’ I can ‘run, and not be weary; . . . walk, and not faint’ ” (Isaiah 40:31). This promise is from a Bible passage that I know well, and it seemed especially appropriate for this situation.