Breakfast at Tiffany’s: Camping? Nope!

BY AARON GRAVETT

“A man's heart deviseth his way: But the LORD directeth his steps.” Proverbs 16:9

When we were children, camping was such an adventure. The campfires, the swimming, the fishing, the stories told - they were vacations we remembered for life.

Even though Tiffany and I are empty nesters, we decided to go camping for three days and two nights. We planned, got all the supplies, and then got all the packing done. Then as we loaded the car there was an exchanged glance that were thoughts unspoken, but we understood each other. It was the look of, “What were we thinking?”

We pushed through, drove to the camp site, and then unpacked everything. As we finished getting the tent up and everything set into place, the plan was to go fishing, but there was no energy left. We made the fire, cooked our meal, cleaned up, and went to blow up mattress.  

The next morning, we were wakened by the temperature shooting up in the tent that made it feel like an instant sauna. We relaxed in the shade, made breakfast, cleaned and then tried to find a good fishing spot to no avail.  

Now remember that Tiffany is dealing with a rare autoimmune disease that zaps her energy, and I was dealing with my own health issues. Not to mention, something had gotten a hold of us that sent us to the bathroom house over and over and over again. Yeah, you know what I mean.

The look we gave the day before was now spoken: “What were we thinking?” This was not the fun adventure we had as kids. We missed the conveniences of life, mainly our bed and air conditioning! We praise God for the amazing things we have in life.  

We decided late afternoon, we were done. We packed up everything and went home, collapsing on the bed being cooled by air conditioning.  

It reminded us that man devises his way, but the Lord directs his steps. One way he does this is to remind us of our limitations. The Lord was giving us signs that this may not be the best use of our relaxing vacation time.

So many times, we make plans and set out to do things but never take time to speak to the Lord about those plans or dig into His word to see what He says about it. We needed time to relax and did not think of all the work that would be required for camping. 

Even Jesus Christ—when he came to earth clothing himself with flesh—needed to rest and relax. He knew the limitations of His body and did what it needed. We need to take our example from Him and realize that we may have plans, but the Lord will direct our steps as we listen to Him and His word.

With this in mind we asked ourselves… “Is camping for us right now?” Nope! Lesson learned.