I Did Not Die On Devil's Tower

By Joel Bates

I was so nervous; I couldn’t sleep many nights leading up to it.  When I was 18 years old, I had vowed never to attempt it.  A few weeks ago, I stood at its massive base, looking up at the towering, basalt columns and questioned my decision. Why had I come after all these years to make the conversion from tourist to climber by trying to summit the legendary heights of Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming? 

My friend Daniel asked me a few months ago if I wanted to try to climb the Tower with him.  I guess because it had been a long time since I had been to Devil’s Tower, I had forgotten how terrifyingly high it is.  I hesitantly agreed, and in preparation, we studied routes and spent time lead climbing our local crags, all in the hope that we could gain enough skill to make the big ascent. 

I knew this climb would be much different from any I had done before. The multi-pitch climb, much higher than any one rope length, required we climb it in stages.  Daniel would first climb to a stopping point, and I would follow him up the route.  Then it would be my turn to lead up the next lengthy crack to a stopping point.  We would alternate back and forth in this fashion many times before reaching the summit.  It is an exhausting way to climb with no easy options for bailing out if the going gets tough.  You can see why I was unable to sleep a wink the night before we were to climb the tower. 

Wrestling with my fear even before arriving, I began to wonder if climbing Devil’s Tower was really God’s will for me.  So, I began to pray about it, asking God if my anxiety originated from the Holy Spirit’s warning me not to do something foolhardy or if it was just the common sense, nervousness that accompanies doing something difficult and scary.  The more I sought the Lord, the more peace I felt about the climb, yet naturally, some tension remained.  I confessed to my wife that though I didn’t feel like I was going to die, I did question whether I had the strength to be victorious over the mountain.  Dying on the attempt would be an extreme form of failure, but not making it to the top would feel quite devastating, none the less.  I asked her, my friends, and family to pray for me in this adventure. One morning as Julie and I prayed, I could picture the beautiful sight of Devil’s Tower emerging up out of the river valley, and suddenly I saw Daniel’s and my names in bubble letters on the top of the tower.  As I pictured this, I heard the still small voice of the Lord say, “I give it to you.” 

Even as I write those words, my eyes mist at the remembrance of God’s kind words to me.  His statement suddenly made sense.  He’d been making statements like this for ages.  Right from the start He put man in a garden and said, “I give it to you.  I give you dominion over the earth.”  Then as Abraham sojourned as a foreigner through a land that God would show him, the Lord revealed His awesome plan in Genesis 13:17, “Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”  Centuries later when Moses faced overwhelming leadership decisions among a questionable people, in Exodus 6:8 God reminded, “I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.”  Over and over again, God has revealed that He is generous and purposeful.  I did a quick search and found dozens of times where the Lord says, “I give… to you.”  Perhaps one of the most profound of these statements is John 15:16 when Jesus states, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” 

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Abraham doubted, but God fulfilled the promise.  Moses and the children of Israel faltered, but God still carried out His plan.  Satan tried to lie, claiming that He had the control, but Jesus shut Him down, disarming him through the cross.  The disciples cowered, but God empowered them to proclaim the Good News.  The early church was oppressed by extreme persecution yet God gave them the nations.  We, the church, look at a daunting climb ahead and wonder if we really have been given authority over the enemies of God.  Sins plague us regularly, and we wonder if we’ll ever overcome the temptations.  We see our society coming apart at the seams, and we fear the future.  But…our great and generous God has given us much.  He’s given us the promise of a hope and a future.  He’s given us the promise of new life.  He’s given us victory through His Son Jesus Christ, and He’s given us an intimate, personal relationship with Himself. 

It was on the second section or “pitch,” as climbers call it, that the promise of the Lord began to empower me.  I was on lead, moving steadily higher when I came to the crux, the hardest part of the climb.  With only a small, hand-placed camming devise for protection, I had to move out toward the exposed rock face, now towering hundreds of feet above the Belle Fourche River, and haul myself up the thin vertical crack to a less exposed cleft where the handholds were more plentiful.  As I hesitated at the precipice, I remembered that Jesus was right there with me.  It was a strange place to hold a prayer service, but I began talking with the Lord at that moment.  I asked for courage and strength and the fulfillment of His promise that He had given this climb to me.  As I prayed, I imagined Jesus sitting just above me on the next belay ledge saying, “Come on, boy.  You can do it.  Just a little bit farther, friend.  That’s it.”  I could see Him smiling.  With a new surge of confidence, I jovially exclaimed, “Easy for you to say, Jesus.  You can hover!”  Fortified with joy and reassurance, I climbed on and didn’t look back or down! 

​At the top of Devil’s Tower, there is a steel cache with a notebook inside.  Names signed on that notepad testify of those who have made the long and arduous climb to the top.  There are no easy ways to get to the top, to have one’s name in that book.  But oh the euphoric joy of seeing my name there, knowing I had done it!  It reminded me of another book of names, the Book of Life.  That, too, is a special list of names of the people who climbed hard, risked much, and overcame by the blood of the Lamb.  That Book holds fantastic names like Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Joshua, and Rahab.  You will see familiar names like Paul, Mary, and John.  You will see common names like my friends’ at DM and mine—all names that represent not what we overcame or our hard work and efforts, but names declaring what God has given to us—the redemptive, restorative, all-powerful, all-loving sacrifice that Jesus made for all humanity as He summited Mount Golgotha to the cross. It was a climb none of us could ever make, and because of who God is, He simply, joyously says, “I give it to you.”

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