5-7 Day Journeys In The Rocky Mountains

You will journey into some of the most stunning mountain scenery that God has created to find the solitude necessary for deep reflection. Spend a week in the mountains of Colorado exploring His creation while pondering who He created you to be and His plan for you life. The powerful experience of retreating to the wilderness dates back thousands of years to several examples in the bible including Christ himself. The original Greek translation used the term eremos. Eremos is translated as “an isolated region, a deserted place, a wilderness”. Scripture paints a beautiful rhythm of Christ being with His disciples, connecting with people, loving people and then retreating to solitude for prayer, restoration and connecting with God. Though we are far removed from it, this beautiful pattern is how we also are created to live. Cycling back and forth between a deep connection with people (working and living) and then retreating into intentional solitude to rest and reflect, is a beautiful rhythm for life. One that God intended us to live, but our current lifestyles make difficult to execute. Cultures in the far east, Australia, Africa and even our own Native American tribes all sought the healing properties of the wilderness and had traditions of retreating into the eremos to find clarity and purpose for their life. Our current culture is completely devoid of those traditions, so it is no wonder that we often find ourselves feeling unfulfilled and anxious about the disconnect between our values and our lifestyle. The disconnect between what we believe and what we do. When our behavior no longer aligns with the vision we have for our life, or with how God intended us to live, it creates confusion and anxiety at the conscious and subconscious level. The resulting stress manifests itself in many ways and effects our emotions, our relationships and our behaviors and ultimately in impacts our physical, mental and spiritual health.

We all need to learn how to better incorporate time each day to stop and reflect and be mindful about our thoughts and our actions. However, even a good daily practice cannot make up for the greater need to fully retreat from the noise of everyday life into the eremos. Doing this requires a place of silence and deep solitude which is hard to come by without some degree of effort. The stress and distractions that are so programmed into each of us from living this unnatural lifestyle takes days to wash away from your mind and body to fully unplug and decompress. Flawless blue skies, snow capped peaks, wildflowers, and cold unspoiled streams stir the soul and strike an undeniable realization of God’s presence. The unmatched beauty cultivates an awe and reminds us of who He is and what He has done, and provides a perspective that is both humbling and inspiring. I’ve spent many a night standing outside of my tent at 3am pondering Psalm 8:3 “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place. What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” Try as you might, you cannot create that experience standing under a street lamp. When was the last time you were humbled by seeing the milky way on full display and feeling firsthand your smallness in His universe? Science is finally catching up and able to prove what we have been able to know and feel forever. The actual act of spending time in God’s creation provides a healing and restoration of your mind, body and soul that no therapy can duplicate, no medicine can compare.

The act of intentionally going somewhere removed from the literal and figurative noise of everyday life is a powerful catalyst to gaining clarity and a deeper perspective on your life. Through guided conversation and reflection you will unpack your life to identify who and what is most important to you and explore how much your current amount of time, energy and money reflects those priorities. You will then create a roadmap to a rich meaningful life that reflects those priorities. Before you can determine what you want to do and where you want to go, you must first determine who you want to become. By the end of your journey, you will be equipped with the clarity, the inspiration, and the wisdom to create a life that prioritizes that which is most important to you and results in a life filled with peace, joy, and purpose. An intentional life aligned with how God intended us to live.