What we were doing seemed crazy—not just because it was winter and not just because we had never done it before.  Those risk factors weighed heavily, but my greatest concern rested on our motley group.  You see, our “band of brothers”—made up of a nine-month-old baby, a nursing mother, a young mother in her 24th week of pregnancy, two teens, three college students, and two, more mature adventurers—were attempting to hike the expanse of the Grand Canyon rim to rim and back again.  We would hike more than 50 miles and face over 11,000 feet of elevation change. The hand-crafted trails etched into the sides of the cliffs led to arid, empty wastelands, making our journey not only about endurance, but also about survival.  

As we approached the South Kaibab Trail, a warning sign appeared: Down is optional.  Up is mandatory.  However, from the moment we stepped onto the trail, an unanticipated, immense desert panorama that far exceeded our expectations captivated us with its beauty.  Our route took us north on a path that centered on the spines of ridges, and we could behold the full, gaping expanse of the canyon that was swallowing us whole.  The sun shone brightly, and its warmth caressed our faces—a gentle kindness despite the time of year—while a cool breeze refreshed our panting breath.   

You may be wondering why we would venture to such a mighty place with such a frail and vulnerable group.  Somewhere around halfway down the canyon, I could see the bottom where the cold Colorado River flowed like a green ribbon, and when our party stopped for a short rest break to take in the view, I remembered a prayer I had prayed a week and a half earlier. 
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My wife, Julie, and our 9-month-old baby, Lydia, almost didn’t come.  Leading up to the trip we had wrestled daily with the indecision of whether or not to take a baby on such a long and arduous expedition.  Winter, backcountry, and babies don’t always mix well.  It wasn’t that we thought the trip was life threatening, just that we didn’t want Lydia or Julie to suffer.  At the same time, we really wanted to do this as a family.  The decision consumed our thoughts. 

So, during a planning evening a few days before the start of the trip, we sat with other members of our expedition and prayed about whether Julie and Lydia should go.  As we sought the Lord for clear direction, no one felt a pang of worry, but neither did they report a sense of confirmation.  One friend said he felt the Lord say that whatever decision we made would turn out good.  In my heart I wanted to see them go, but I worried about the outcomes.  As I bowed my head the Holy Spirit revealed an image and invitation.  The picture was of Jesus, suited up for the expedition and walking next to Lydia and Julie down the Grand Canyon trail.  He was beaming with a huge smile, and with a sweep of his hand gesturing to the spectacle of the canyon said, “Come and see.” 

That’s why when I stood looking down at the river, feeling the sun on my face and looking at my wife and baby there beholding it, too, my eyes sparkled as I held back tears of joy.  “Come and see!”  What an invitation!  What a command!  He’s been making that statement since He created this world. 

Psalm 66:5 says, “Come and see what God has done: He is awesome in His deeds toward the children of man.”  Is it possible that when He made the Grand Canyon, He did it just to show it to us?  It is possible that He really did hike right next to a baby, keeping her contented and supplied while she bounced in the back of a pack carrier?  What sort of a God does that, and why?
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Psalm 111:2-4 gives further revelation: “Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them. Full of splendor and majesty is His work, and His righteousness endures forever. He has caused His wondrous works to be remembered; the LORD is gracious and merciful” (ESV). 

​It seems clear that God does this—makes this stuff, invites us to come and see—so we will remember that He is all powerful (greater than any canyon), a delighter of people, righteous, gracious, and merciful.  Instead of seeing God as a killjoy or as indifferent to our plans, perhaps we should consider how He’s orchestrated His creation to center all our affections, all our hopes, all our longings on Him, proving that when we “come and see,” it’s not creation that we truly marvel at, but the Maker of it all.  All we have to do is lift our eyes and see. 
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I placed faith in the Lord’s simple invitation.  He didn’t promise it would be easy, and He didn’t guarantee our safety, but knowing He would be with us left me with a peace that passed understanding.  So, there we stood, Julie and Lydia and I with our family and companions.  We stood in the glow of morning sunlight and drank in the cool canyon air.  We stood in awe of the breathtaking scenery at the invitation of almighty God.  He had said, “Come and see,” so what else could we do but behold and worship?   

For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work;
at the works of your hands I sing for joy.
Psalm 92:4 ESV

​My saw whirred and bit hard into the 2x6 plank, leaving a fresh pine scent wafting in the thin dust.  I laid this final piece of the wall, next to the other studs sitting in orderly rows on the flat, concrete floor.  Checking that each plank was in place, I began blasting framing nails into the wood like a hen pecking at grain—like a very small chicken in a really big farmyard. I pecked away at the overwhelming task of building a house—one cut, one timber, and one nail at a time. 
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I had begun learning the carpentry trade from my brother-in-law when I joined his building crew during the years between being a missionary and a camp director.  I did it for the money, but I learned a valuable skill-set in the process that I still use frequently.  However, the trade really became embedded in my mind when I embarked on building my own home.  It was then that I had to make the decisions, draft the plans, order the materials, and organize a crew. The consequences of my mistakes would cost me personally in dollars and time.  By the end of the two years it took to build that home, I promised myself I’d never do that again, but the passing of time can sometimes cause us to forget all the undesirable aspects of an event and only remember the good results.  The past difficulties blur and become a fond reminiscence of the path to victory.  

​The other day as I hefted a heavy stud wall into place, one small phase in the long and arduous task of building the new Discovery Ministries staff house, it reminded me with acute retrospection of the challenges in constructing my house--challenges that had previously caused me to swear off being a builder. 
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“How long do you think this will take to build?” asked one of my co-workers. 
I scratched my chin and thought about how we were only finding a few partial days here and there to work on the structure, thought some more about how slow I am as an amateur carpenter, and then considered how the project is being funded a little at a time through the financial overflow of a small, non-profit, Christian wilderness camp. 

“It could take us a while,” I admitted. 

“Who do you think will live here?” the staff member mused as he drove another nail.
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​“Not sure,” I said, wiping sweat from my eyes.  “For now, I guess we’re just preparing for the future.”  

As I worked, I kept thinking about something Jesus said to his disciples while they enjoyed that last supper: ​
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“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (Jn 14:1-3)
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Before Jesus was a rabbi instructing fledgling blue-collar disciples, before He taught the masses and stood toe-to-toe against the Pharisees, before He was Messiah—better said, while He was Messiah—He was a carpenter.  He would know how to “prepare a place.” So, it was with pleasure that I could identify with this Jesus, who could swing a hammer, snap a chalk line, and set a foundation corner.  I also saw why He is described with so much “builder talk.” He is the “Capstone” and the “Cornerstone” and the “Builder” that the prophet Amos saw standing with plumb line and measuring rod.
 
“I go to prepare a place for you.” Remembering the former carpenter made this promise, I considered that I am slowly building and preparing for the next generation of camp staff a “place,” complete with living room, kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, and den.  So, I can be a little more understanding as to why it has taken Jesus so long to return.  Building a quality dwelling takes time, and He is preparing a place for us beyond anything we can ask or imagine.

​I picked up another nail—one of the many it would take to fasten this structure together—and paused to feel its weight and gaze at its significance.  On the night Judas betrayed Jesus into the hands of the Jewish religious rulers and the Roman authorities, He told His disciples He would go prepare a place for them. I now suddenly realized that when Jesus said He would go and prepare a place for us, He actually began laying the foundation that very night—not with a saw blade slicing wood, but with the deep cuts striping His back, a punishment alone that often killed victims of that time.  Then He lifted the wood—the beam called a patibulum or cross, carried it to the worksite, and laid the foundation with His life.  Being a carpenter, Jesus knew how to drive a nail, and He said He would go to prepare a place. So, the first nails driven in the preparation were the ones that went through His hands and feet. 
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I keep returning to our building site, even after mess-ups and miscalculations because I can see progress. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as seeing a wall go up, watching the house take shape, and imagining the potential.  Maybe that’s why when Hebrews 12:2 refers to the cross, it specifies “who for the joy set before Him, [Jesus] endured the cross.”  He was glad to begin the building process then and continue it today in you and me as we are being built into a dwelling place worthy of the Holy Spirit of God.  Like a good house, we are being built one nail at a time.  

​Language matters!  For instance, years ago while a missionary in Dublin, I went into a department store and asked for pants.  The desk clerk turned a shade of red and awkwardly directed me to the women’s underwear section.  Then as a dinner guest, if I asked for a napkin, the host should have handed me a diaper.  Once I dined with a friend, who hastily ordered calamari from the menu, mistaking it for caviar.  Boy, was he surprised when the waiter set down a saucer of squid instead of fish eggs! 

Apparently, language matters.  This truth is what the latest group of missionaries-in-training took away from their experience orienteering with a map and compass.  The cadre of wilderness wanderers was actually quite adept at reading the map and using their compasses to find the right direction.  They usually knew where they were, too.  However, the unifying challenge for them came when they tried to prove to the facilitators that they were at the intended destination. 

Pointing to a spot on the topo map, one participant would begin, “If you look over here to the right, next to this green part, you’ll see that the river goes the way it should, and the lines go down indicating that there is definite ground, and that’s how we know we are here.” 

We facilitators would scratch our heads and ask them to repeat the description using more precise map-and-compass lingo—like north, south, east, and west or ridge, valley, saddle, and peak.  We pressed them not only to know where they were, but how to explain it to others. 
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After the first couple of leaders finished proving the destination to the facilitators, they returned to the group with an important new piece of information—“Language matters,” they said.  “The better the precision of our words, the more impactful the intent of their meaning.”

​This concept took root in that passel of missionaries who would be going to distant lands not to just live like Jesus, but also to translate what it means to be a disciple.  The facilitators’ demands of the participants as they proved their locations with the map and compass became just the first of many opportunities these missionaries would have to choose their words for the greatest impact.  As missionaries to foreign lands, language matters. 

It’s no stretch to say that language mattered to Jesus.  Speaking just a few, well-chosen, words, this Teller of parables and Teacher of truth was certainly a linguistic sculptor.  Consider how He so skillfully shut down the verbal traps set by the religious leaders.  That takes the oral skill of a trial lawyer.  Moreover, He usually stood alone as He swatted back their ploys like a pro tennis player skillfully returning a wicked serve.

Jesus was a master of language, but one of the most powerful linguistic statements He ever made would make a high school English teacher want to resign.  Jesus stood in the middle of another verbal brawl with the Pharisees in the temple.  They thought they were in control because He was on their turf.  John chapter 8 records how the scuffle begins with a question of heritage and ends with an all-out assault. 

“Jesus answered them, ‘I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill Me because My word finds no place in you.  I speak of what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.’” (Italics mine.)

He simply established His authority, but the religious leaders didn’t take kindly to the comparison.  After claiming heritage from Abraham, they launched a verbal attack to attempt an assassination of Jesus’s character. 

“They answered Him, ‘Abraham is our father….We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.’”
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Pay attention to their language here.  They know the story of a woman named Mary who showed up pregnant for her own wedding, claiming that God was responsible.  They don’t believe her testimony, though, so they will use this to try to discredit Jesus.  Their language is disguised only by sarcasm, but the message is clear:  you’re the illegitimate son of a scandalous woman.  Them’s fightin’ words when you mess with somebody’s mama!  Jesus pulls no punches as He mounts one of his greatest orations about His deity, beginning with the dismantling assertion that their true father is none other than Satan. 

The Pharisees fuss and pout and stick out their bottom lip and try for great comebacks like, “Well, you’re nothing but a lily-livered Samaritan!”  And, “You think our daddy is the devil, but we’re rubber and you’re glue and that claim bounces off us and sticks to you!” [not an exact quote!] Then they add, “You are not fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham?” They must have thought this upstart was no match for their most honored and ancient patriarch of Israel. 
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Then Jesus does it.  He makes a claim, says a phrase that if we didn’t know better, would be just plain bizarre, “Before Abraham was….I AM!”  Bad grammar, flawless clarity.  I bet you could have heard a pin drop as the fidgeting crowd of onlookers, the furtive disciples, and the fuming religious leaders can’t believe what they’ve just heard.  This is burning bush talk.  This is at the heart of the Torah!  This is the very name of Jehovah—unutterable on pain of death!  And they picked up stones to stone Jesus because the message was very clear, and the language mattered:  Jesus officially claimed to be God.  He slipped into the shuffling masses, escaped the barrage, and lived to die another day of His choosing. 
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What about you?  Are you letting the language of the Savior impact your life?  Are Jesus’ words falling on deaf ears?  Is He slipping into the crowd of distractions—an apparition of your soul?  And how do you speak of Him?  Are your words seasoned with the salt of the gospel?  Let His words dictate your life.  Let your words imitate the Savior.  Because after all, language matters.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
Psalm 19:14 (NLT)