Clop, cloppity, clop, the grey horse's hooves are slamming down on the bleached asphalt. I bounce along and laugh. The mare obeys my command to slow down to a walk as we trace along a neighbor's property, and I pat her soft neck. She snottily snorts out a word of contentment.
What a joy it is to enjoy yourself as you improve something else or someone else. The sky is blue, the wind is warm, and the mare is learning. There's a great sense of purpose in my play.
Does outdoor recreation today allow for this, this act of giving through and within the activity enjoyed?
To some extent, yes, it does. Even on solo excursions, adventures out in nature stack up fuel and fire for storytelling and thought. They refresh and renew our spirits in a unique way, so that we can be better friends, friendlier neighbors, neighborly coworkers.
But the motivation of the adventure seems key in these instances.
Solo excursions 'into creation for recreation' are good and purposeful if they are to somewhat done for the sake of others. So that, even if your companion is a bike or a kayak or a pair of running shoes, you can be performing an unselfish and intentional service. You can, but you also may choose not to.
Same thing with outdoor recreation done in groups, in bunches. You can be in it for yourself, or you can be in it to serve and befriend others. It can become impersonal and purely for pleasure. And that's something guides and workers in the outdoor industry need to be especially cautious of. Once you get bogged down with burdens, once you've seen the sunset from that same spot on the trail however many times, recreation easily transforms from serving to surviving, becoming about money and/or yo'self.
Yo'self first, or others first? It's a choice that faces us every minute of the day, in every place.
This was on my mind when I patted my horse. Even horseback riding has lost much of its central purpose, its practicality. I think it used to be easier to enjoy the outdoors in a service-oriented manner, not to say that it was done that way by all. You would be training a horse, teaching your son how to plow, farming or hunting to provide food for the table, etc. Nowadays time and work options in the outdoors are limited. Most of us do our 'jobs' inside. We make our money inside. We serve or survive away from the sun's rays. And so our options for purposeful time spent in the great old outdoors are limited. And we are often tired from 'real work' when we get onto the trails or out on the river, which is understandable. We are looking for restoration, but we won't find it if we seek it at the expense of all else. True restoration is not found in selfishness.
Nature has become a playground more than a living office.
And I think we need to be careful with this playground and this consumer sort of mentality. Speaking as a servant of Jesus Christ, everything I do should be an intentional act to glorify God, putting Him first, not done in a spirit of selfishness or pure pleasure-seeking, but done in service to and enjoyment of God.
The fields are often foreign to us unless we are using them, carving them up with a mountain bike. The great outdoors is too often seen as a thing to be selfishly consumed, to be pulled off the shelf like a pack of Cheez-its. We are divorced from it unless we 'recreating' on it. This divorce of ours from work on the land and from belonging to the land makes it all the more an easy place for selfishness.
This self-centered usage is akin to prostitution versus marriage in a lesser way.
From the perch of this post, it is in vision that others-centered, God-glorifying activity in the outdoors is still possible in the modern age, even with our separation from the land and with all our fancy toys. Purpose in the outdoors has been made harder by the pure recreation of time outside. Nature must be a land of purpose, well-loved and well-used, not merely a vessel of pleasure. Nature only used is nature profaned. She is sacred in her God-given beauty, to be stewarded.
The gritty thing is putting it into practice, day after day, year after year, lest outdoor recreation manifest in our lives as an ugly realm of "me." And I've certainly struggled with this. It's not about me. I'm not even about me. I wasn't created for myself but to glorify God. The reason I wrote this article, the whole point, is that selfishness is a killing influence and sacrificial service, an 'others-centered' life is life-giving. And this applies in every area of life. Things that suck our time, they all need to be evaluated and intentional-ized. Are we skipping out very frequently on important relationships, obligations, and service-opportunities in order to spend that time outside? The outdoors can so easily become about us, instead of about the 'else, even when your job is serving people in the outdoors, like me.
To step into the woods and onto a bike or whatever with gratitude and givenness is to honor God, to honor His creation, and to honor our neighbors.
Look up and around, past your own feet. The trees are swaying in worship to the Lord, the sunrise is singing His song.
The trails, the beauty, the bird-calls, the kayak, the companions, they ain't about us. They're about Him.
So go out and learn.
"And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." — Colossians 3:17, the Holy Bible.