The Trial of Your Faith (Pt. 9)

Where Faith Begins –

Tim Hansel was the founder of Summit Expedition, a wilderness survival school and ministry.  Often in his work, Tim led groups of mountain climbers and hikers, youth and adults, on exciting trips and retreats throughout the western ranges of the U.S. 

In the mid-1970s, as Tim was guiding an expedition up the side of a mountain, he was unaware that the bottom of his climbing shoes had iced over. Tim lost his footing and literally fell off the side of the mountain.  He dropped a distance the height of a five-story building, landing on his back at the bottom of a crevasse.

It was a miracle that Tim Hansel did not die on the spot.  Amazingly, he survived, but unfortunately, his life was never the same.  From that day on, Tim lived with chronic pain racking his body.  It never went away.  The pain was there when he went to bed at night; it was there when he awakened in the morning.  It was Tim’s constant companion.

Tim Hansel knew what it’s like to be on a mountaintop.  He also knew the desolate feeling of having to slog through a hot, dry wilderness experience – both in a physical sense, and in the spiritual.  I had never met Tim, but a friend sent me his book – and it came at the exact moment I needed it.

As I read the book, I immediately began to identify with Tim’s experience of falling off the mountain and living in the valley of loneliness as a result.  More than that, however, I began to find clues as to how to endure the chronic pain that followed and how to survive in that valley after the fall.  In the early pages of his book, Tim quotes Elisabeth Elliot, a woman familiar with valley walking.  Elisabeth says, “That’s where faith begins…  in the wilderness, when you are all alone and afraid, when things don’t make any sense.”

3 thoughts on “The Trial of Your Faith (Pt. 9)

  1. Jim — Ordered a 7 year package of your food to Texas about 6 months ago. I just love Jesus, man.

    I never could have imagined even two years ago that I would be someone anyone would look to for integrity. It was at about that time in Denver, Colorado that I woke up in the night in the downstairs of my home and saw something both frightened me and excited me beyond words. Funny how a single moment can change the way one views everything. Indeed, this world is not what it seems… a subdomain of something much larger in scope perhaps? I wish everyone could open their real eyes and peek beyond this veil for merely a moment…. clarity, precision… a total dissolve of EVERYTHING that seemed so important only moments before.

    Thus — anymore — I just love Jesus, and enjoy telling people about Him—this is what I intend to do until the last breath I have in my lungs. I will not be satisfied if I have even one skill left at the end of this life that I have not given to Jesus Christ. Then — I’ll be ready to leave this place. Trust me — this place is inferior anyway, its like a dangerous kinder-garden.

    sincerely,
    Trey Smith

  2. The Trial of Your Faith (Pt. 9)
    Dear Sir,
    In Mark 6:46, Jesus went into the mountain to pray.
    There are no mountains in the area of Staffordshire,UK where I live. However, with faith as small as a mustard seed, we can say to this mountain, even Sinai or the Mount of Olives move to us and it will move, giving us our ideal spiritual places to pray.
    I’m convinced that if we pray to Jesus our pain eventually goes away and we get elevated from the depths and shadows of the valley, to the glorious heights.
    Thanks,
    God bless.
    Stephen
    Staffordshire
    UK

  3. In the valley, where we think we cannot take another step. After we are through it, we realize it was there that we learned and grew. For in the valley we are crying out for God and to God. Very often at the top of our lungs or in quiet despair, God where are you. Or why God. We are only human, I think of God taking notice of the sparrow that falls and telling us you are of greater value that the sparrow. its almost like he is saying, I know where you are at, I know what you are going through. Nothing escapes me. You are mine and I care for you

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