APRIL / MAY
2005
IN THIS ISSUE
From The Editor........................Page 2
Along the Trail of Truth.............Page 3
Trail Tales.................................Page 4
Encouraging God's Children.....Page 5
Previous Newsletters (Archives)
Home Page (Trailheads)
Hiking the Trail of Truth, PO Box 1443, Crestline, CA, 92325-1443
Trail Office Phone, 909-338-4081
Mark's Trail Phone # 707-477-2460, or e-mail hikemark@hotmail.com
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From The Editor... |  |
Hello, and Welcome to the April / May 2005 Newsletter! I sincerely hope this day you have allowed the Spirit of God to be active within your heart, and that you are perhaps able to get out for a hike and consider many of the wonders He has made. I hope also that you will do the best you can to share that unique inspiration with others along the daily trails of your life.
Knowing God is first seeing Him through the things He has made. Hiking the Trail of Truth is here to help you along in your journey of discovery and sharing. If you have been or are presently unable to get out this season for a physical hike, just visit our websites' feature trail for this quarter; The High Sierra Trail. Your mental trek there can take you where you may be unable to journey physically. The education, inspiration and lasting encouragement which you can find along the 7 hikes of the High Sierra Trail will be well worth your time... Just click on the High Sierra Trail link on the bottom of this newsletter, or click on that trailmarker on the left side of the website's Home page, or you can locate the marker on the website's Hiking Maps and Trailheads page as well. I sincerely hope that you will hike all of our devotional and educational trails at the website this year. Again, we are here to help you in any way we can and, as always, look forward to hearing from you.
WEBSITE NEWS:
¤ If you haven't noticed, the mailing address for Hiking the Trail of Truth has changed effective March 1st. There is also a new trail office phone number, and a new e-mail address. Mark's hiking phone is still, 707-477-2460, and is still the best way to get in touch with Mark personally.
The new mailing address is: HTTOT, PO Box 1443, Crestline, CA 92325-1443
The new Trail Office Phone is: 909-338-4081
The new e-mail address is: hikemark@hotmail.com
Hope to hear from you!
Beginning with this issue, and Lord willing, HTTOT will produce 6 issues of the Newsletter per year (one every two months) instead of 4 per year. Be sure to visit our newest addition to the Newsletter on page 3. Along the Trail of Truth replaces Friends Along the Trail for this year. Along the Trail of truth is an informative and profound look at reality, which we hope will help to keep you on the right trail while on your journey through life in this deceitful world in which we live. I hope you will find it indeed rewarding!
On April 15th, A Hawk's Trail will go up on the website. This trail is an overview of the life and times of the author of Hiking the Trail of Truth. It's a no nonsense hike, created to help you to understand in more depth the struggles in your own personal life and times. Gear up for a profound look at the reality of sin and its affect within us. I sincerely hope it will be a life changing adventure for you! Hope to hear from you regarding your personal discoveries!
HTTOTs' Desert Trail, a Native American musical CD, is still available for you to enjoy. I have a copy just for you. Simply drop me a note in the mail to request the CD and I will most gladly mail it to you. There is no charge... Send your request to: HTTOT, Mark S Taylor, PO box 1443, Crestline, CA 92325-1443... A description of this CD is available in the August 2003 Newsletter, which you can find in Newsletter Archives. It is quite an inspiring array of music. Hope to hear from you with your request...
If you do not have a computer or Internet access, you may be interested in a printed copy of Hiking the Trail of Truth (the website, volume IV). If so, please write and let me know. I will make one just for you should you request it. This volume is a printing of the November 2003 website edition, and is indeed educational in the spiritual realm. Note: It will not contain the Mountain and Valley Trail; 366 daily devotionals, which will make up a separate printed edition, Lord willing, in 2005. It will also not contain the Monthly Newsletter, save one sample copy (Nov 2003)... I also have available at your request the original booklet, Hiking the Trail of Truth, a Profound Look at Pure Reality (August 2000), and volume 2 in the HTTOT series, The Monuments (December 2000). These booklets are great learning tools, free of charge, and so I will be looking forward to your order.
On the first of December 2004, video volume #13 in the Hiking the Trail of Truth series, entitled, The Adventure of Knowing God, became available for you. The video was filmed in the Mt. Whitney region of California's High Sierra, and is quite informative. You may receive a copy of this free, 56 minute video, simply by writing a request for the video and mailing it to the Trail Office address on the front of this Newsletter. I hope to hear from you with your video request!
Don't forget that HTTOT offers FREE COUNSELING to anyone who wants it (Lord knows we all need it). Your varied questions are also important, and are given the utmost consideration in answering them. For you to be aware of the truth, in a world where falsehood abounds, is very important to us. So just write, e-mail, or phone any time. Contact information is listed at the bottom of the cover page of this Newsletter, or you can visit Questions and Answers Trail Camp at the website, where a ''submit a question" link is provided...
Next Letter from the Editor; Blessed are the poor in spirit.
THIS MONTH'S LETTER: Going Home.
Did you know that Jesus is preparing a special place for you? Our hearts cannot live without hope. Jesus said to His followers, "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also..." (John 14:1-3) The courage for our journey through life often falters because we lack patience and through that lack lose site of Jesus' promise regarding our home in heaven. Most of us live as if this earthly life is our only hope. We believe that this life is our best shot at happiness; as good as it gets, and so we live as desperate, demanding, and eventually despairing men and women.
The best human life is unspeakably sad. Even if we manage to escape some of the bigger tragedies (and few of us do), life rarely matches our expectations. When we do get a taste of what we really long for, it never lasts. Every vacation eventually comes to an end. Friends move away. Our careers don't quite pan out. Of course we're disappointed with certain outcomes, and we will continue to be—we were made for so much more! The Bible teaches us that God has set eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). When the Spirit of God fills the heart our longing for heaven whispers at us through our disappointments and shouts at us through our agonies. CS Lewis wrote, "If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world." The apostle Paul said, If our hope in Christ is for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone else in the world (1st Corinthians 15:19).
If our pictures of heaven are to arouse and move us, they must be moving pictures. So go ahead—dream a little. Use your imagination. Picture the best possible ending to your life's story that you can. If it isn't heaven, something better is. The apostle Paul has told us plainly, No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him (1st Corinthians 2:9). What is at the end of our personal journeys? Something beyond our wildest imagination. Yet, in the light of the promises of Scripture, we can discover clues...
Heaven is the beginning of an adventure in intimacy, "a world of love where God is the fountain". It is there that we will be free to be the true selves that God designed us to be. Part of our adventure there will be to explore the wonders of the new heaven and new earth, the most breathtaking of which will be God Himself. We will have all eternity to explore the mysteries of God, and not just explore, but celebrate and share with one another. The exploration of heaven shall include our knowing of each other. We shall have the universe for our own, and be good, merry children in the great house of our father. And there is, of course, the exploration of our own lives...
We know, through Scripture, that a time will come for us to look back with our Lord over the story of our lives. However God may choose to evaluate our lives, whatever memory of our past we shall have in heaven, we know this: It will only contribute to our joy. We will see our life's story by the light of redemption, and see how God has used both the good and the bad, the sorrow and the gladness, for our welfare and His glory. With the assurance of total forgiveness we will be free to know ourselves fully, walking again through the seasons of life to linger over the cherished moments and stand in awe at God's grace for the moments we have tried so hard to forget. Our gratitude and awe will swell into worship of a God so kind as to make us fully His own. Indeed, one day soon we will 'round a bend and our dreams will come true. We really will live happily ever after. The long years in exile will be swept away in the joyful tears of our arrival "home".
Every day now when we rise, we can tell ourselves, My journey today will bring me closer to home; it may be just around the bend. I will walk on in that hope, for I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me. All we long for we shall have; all we long to be, we will be. All that has hurt us so deeply—the dragons and nits, the arrows of affliction, our many false lovers, and Satan himself—they will all be swept away. And then real life begins.
In the next Newsletter, we will take a profound look at The Poor in Spirit. Until then, I thank you for and am honored by your time spent with Letter from the Editor.
Sincerely, Mark S Taylor, HTTOT
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| Along The Trail of Truth |  |
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Along the Trail of Truth is HTTOT's newest addition to the Newsletter and replaces the former Friends Along the Trail segment. Along the Trail of Truth is a no-nonsense look at the world's latest ideas and/or publications, and 'sets the record straight' concerning them. God's word teaches us that the wisdom of the world is indeed foolishness with God, and that He has also chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the so-called wise (1st Corinthians 1:19-31). Relative to this profound reality, Along the Trail of Truth takes a look at natural mankind's perception of things and passes onto you the truth of the matter...
This month we will take a look at an article found in the March/April 2005 issue of the Sierra Magazine, titled, Lay of the Land (page 12), and subtitled, Noah's Canyon? Geology collides with theology at the National Park Service...Here is the article...
Do not be deceived dear reader—true geology never collides with true theology. True geology is based on the actual age of the geophysical earth. Any believer in God knows that the flood of Noah did indeed reshape the entire earth around 2460 BC, or approximately 4,465 years ago. If you add 1,656 years to that figure (the time from creation to the flood) you come up with the approximate age of the earth; from the time God formed it for mankind's habitation, to be about 6,121 years.
Harmonizing that flood record with the strata of sandstone and limestone full of fossils, contrary to the article, is indeed an easy task for one who has the knowledge of truth. One can physically count the main strata layers in the canyon and see that it was formed during the short time (a few months) in which the flood waters receded from the earth (Genesis 8:3-5). Each day of water recession is obviously marked by a different layer of strata. One does not need to be trained in science to see or understand this. The Grand Canyon formation can easily be seen as the result of the worldwide flood of 2460 BC. However, the National Park Service basis it's lectures, tours and brochures relevant to the canyon on the false sciences of today's "higher educational system" (1st Timothy 6:20). They are unaware of the cunning deceitfulness of the enemy who has polluted that very system. Perhaps the outcome of this magazine article will produce a needed awakening for them, and visitors to that grand monument will, as a result, become much more accurately informed, God willing...
False geology is based on theories that the age of things can only be determined by calculating the time it takes, under normal conditions, for formations to physically evolve or change. It does not consider the absolute, scientific truth of the cataclysmic, global flood of Noah, nor does it consider that God originally created all things full grown; such as trees, plants, animals and mankind (Genesis 1 and 2). The dry land of the earth (including dirt, sand and rocks) was also formed at God's command (Genesis 1:9, 10). Therefore, it would be impossible to consider the age of anything to be older than the 6,121 years of the earth's existence. The current geophysical condition of the earth had its origin at that time. Rocks, land and water are thought to have existed prior to that, but, if they did, they were without form and void; meaning that things were out of order, shapeless and without life in the darkness which surrounded them (Genesis 1:2).
There were no fossils at the beginning. The "fossil record" formed only during the flood, when myriads of plants, fish, animals, and a vast population (in the millions) of humans were buried alive. The geographical and climatic conditions of the earth now differ dramatically from those of the pre-flood earth, yet, the fossils now being uncovered continue to bear an accurate record and tell us much about our planet. No matter who you are, no matter what your educational background, no matter whether you are famous or unknown, rich or poor—if you hike anywhere in the southwestern United States you can see, discern, and touch great physical evidence regarding the worldwide flood of 2460 BC.
Thanks for hiking along the trail of truth for April and May. See you again next time.
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Trail Tales |  |
Previous episodes of Trail Tales can be found in Newsletter Archives
This month's special tale: Desert Discovery Part 2
As I said at the close of last month's part 1 of Trail Tales, Desert Discovery; on that particular May adventure I stumbled on some old ruins near Monument Valley early in the morning, and there made a startling discovery... I discovered that my relationship to the outdoors actually has everything to do with who I am. After all, the Genesis account teaches me that I was made from the very dust of the earth. It would then seem only natural to be drawn to the earth; to the rocks, to the trees and the plants, in the midst of all the wondrous scenery that God has made!
I had stumbled onto the ruins of a once upon a time Indian civilization. American Indians, much like their ancestors, had a great respect for the earth and sky. Their dwellings were knowledgeably oriented to the rising and setting of the sun, and to the movement of the stars. They used their wisdom concerning the sun, moon and stars to plant and harvest their crops. They built altars of rock to mark the seasons; at different times of the year the shadows cast on the altars by the sun would tell them when to plant or reap, when to prepare for bad weather or plan on good seasons. All these things that God had made were sacred to them; an everyday part of their being. All things had life; rocks, trees, plants, animals, the stillness and the wind spoke to them in ways that we too can understand if we consider their true source.
I've been allowed the honor of extensive hiking here in the American southwest. It seems to be much easier to "commune" with God while walking among the places where no present man made structures are visible. The mind and heart seem to relax more in places like this. This is raw earth, not cluttered by fences or concrete, not destroyed by the presence of trash dumps or litter. There are no electric or telephone poles or wires. There are no shopping malls with people scurrying around talking of earthly things. There is only the most valuable beauty of earth and sky, of trees, brush and rocks, and the "sound" of stillness which, according to local Indians, is a great pleasure. The wind also speaks boldly in these places where one can only see and hear the wonders of God. Streams of pure water flowing here and there are a constant reminder of the nourishment God provides for this exquisite land He formed.
To be lost in these things, to be captured by their majesty is indeed a great honor. To lie down in a field, or kneel amidst the desert brush, or to hear the sound of the various mixtures of terrain under one's footsteps is peace that passes all understanding. This peace allows one's soul to be still, to radiate understanding and kindness, and to ponder the will of God, which is to love all things He has made, and to respect them enough to allow them to be the essence of one's speech and actions in everyday living. There are countless responsibilities in this life, but none greater than the responsibility to honor God through all thoughts, words and deeds. Though we are flawed because of our sinful nature, we can gain the strength and wisdom to have some control of thought, word, and deed, through a constant awareness of the awesomeness of God's creation. When these sights and sounds fill our hearts, we can become more than conquerors through Him who loved us (Romans 8:37).
Jesus found refuge in the deserts and mountains. It was there that He spent most of His time in communion with His Father. He was a man who understood the value of that particular seclusion. It is only fitting or natural that somewhere within us is the ability to make that discovery; We can do this when we are motivated by God's Spirit. I hope that you will consider what's been revealed here and seek it in your own life. It can make all the difference in the world in how you deal with this earthly existence. To further orient your thinking in this most positive direction, I recommend that you hike the Desert, Lake, and High Sierra Trails at this website.
Thanks for hiking with me today. I hope you will join me again next time for another Trail Tales adventure. Until then, may God be with you on your journey in life. Sincerely, MS Taylor HTTOT
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Encouraging Gods' Children |  |
Here is this months' list of those who need encouragement through your prayers and letters. I hope you will take the time to encourage them... Some of their problems are personal and we will respect their privacy; leaving it up to those individuals to share at their discretion. Please pray for them and write to them (I can provide addresses for you. Please call, E-mail or write to me for that information). Encouragement is a noble thing and a profound way to honor God through lifting up His children... Please inform me if you would like to add anyone to our prayer list.
Let us this month encourage and pray for...
Mr. Bill Keyser of Fresno, California... Bill is endeavoring to organize a special Bible study class at his local church. We know how difficult it can be, in these times, to get people's minds on God's truth. I would ask that we all pray for Bill, and his efforts, that folks in that area will be led to discover their need, and choose to be better informed through the study of God's Word. Let us also thank God for sending this laborer into His field, for, the harvest is indeed plentiful, but the laborer's are so few. Bill needs your prayers! Please help.
The family of Jack Myers of Crestline, California... Mr. Myers passed away on February 25th, after a long illness. Please remember his family in your prayers as he embarks on the journey we all face.
Carrie P. T. Rowland of West Salem, Ohio...Carrie is going through some deep personal trials. Please pray that God will grant her the strength to endure.
Adam Hadley and his mother, Paula, of Marietta, Ohio... Adam and his mother are going through one of those very difficult times in life, when God seems to be so far away. Please pray that they will accept this time as a period of learning and growing in the Lord, who is truly near to us. Pray that they will seek His counsel, that He might heal their wounds.
| Update on Carli... (March 29/05) Carli is scheduled for her
third and final surgery (till she is older, then she does it all again) on
April 13th. She has done extremely well, and we are so excited for her to be
out of that fixator. She will have it on for four to six weeks more, after her
surgery, and then a brace or cast for a short period of time to let the whole
thing strengthen. It is amazing, the children we see at the Rubin Institute for
Orthopedic Advancement. Dr. Paley is pure genius. Please keep her, and all of
the children in need of help, in your prayers. Thank you so much for all of the
prayers you have already offered for her. I know prayer works... Love,
Cheryl PS see attached photo! |
 More information on Carli can be found in the Oct/Nov/Dec 2004 Newsletter (see Newsletter Archives) |
Update, April 13th...Hi everyone. Carli came through today's surgery with flying colors. She was in surgery for 2 1/2 hours and the Doc was totally pleased with her outcome. She will be here for a couple of days. Her fixator will be on 'til probably the end of June, and then she will have a hard cast on her entire right leg for one month. After that, she will have a molded brace that fits in her shoe and up to her ankle, to protect it, for a looooooong time. Jill asked how long, like years? and he said, yes, like years, that the ankle that he just made her needs protection while she is growing to make sure it isn't damaged. She won't have to come back here for awhile now, she can do follow ups with Dr. Dias in Chicago (he is the one that told them about Dr. Paley here in Baltimore), and he will keep in touch with Dr. Paley and forward x-rays. When Dr. Paley sees that all is healed, Carli will come back to have the fixator taken off. Jill and Brian did great this time, they have become troopers for sure. We have met some amazing children here, and plan on keeping in touch with them the rest of their lives. They are truly amazing kids. Thank all of you for your prayers and concern for Carli; it did wonders. I am forever in your debt. Thanks again, and love to all of you... Cheryl
PS I will be home on Friday, and the kids will be home on Saturday.
Please remember all of the homeless and the poor of the world again this month. Try to locate a homeless person and help them in any way that you can... Continue to pray for all of those in need of daily bread, and please pray earnestly for all the people of the world in which we live, in every country, that men and women will desire to find wisdom, that they will turn and seek God's face in this world full of spiritual blindness, rebellion and increasing depravity. The Lord's coming will not be delayed much longer. Endeavor to encourage others to seek Him, in truth, while there is still time.
Father, grant us the humility to seek Your face for the well being of others. Help us to reach out to them, with kindness, in word and in deed. We are, each one of us, in need of Your guidance in the use of possessions, our prosperity, our tongues and our talents. Though we are quite unworthy, we ask you to bless our efforts... In the name of your glorious Son, Jesus, we pray.
Thank you so much for hiking with us through the April/May issue of the Hiking the Trail of Truth Newsletter. Until June then, may the grace of our Lord Jesus be upon you...
Sincerely, Mark S Taylor
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HIKING THE TRAIL OF TRUTH
Mark S. Taylor
(707) 477-2460