August 1. Phil Floyd. Phil is a young man who loves to conquer large obstacles. Here’s his story.
On this date in 1987, Phil camped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
If you don’t want to live in fear, don’t feed it.
The last day in July, Phil—expert hiker and camper—was packed and primed for his eleven-day backpack trip into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He would leave in the morning. “Independence” was his middle name. Trekking through mountains was one of his greatest pleasures. And he loved to hike alone.
After dinner, a hiking buddy phoned, and Phil joined some friends to see the new Schwarzenegger film. They laughed and joked and pretended The Predator wasn’t scary.
Sure, Phil and his friends had jumped and jerked a couple of times, but watching the commandos be killed off one by one hadn’t unnerved Phil. The fact that the movie was set in a dark forest—where the Predator appeared with no warning—was just Hollywood doing its job.
The next morning, Phil drove off to spend eleven days by himself in the woods.
The first night, he stayed at a campground. “That night I was scared pee-less. Every time I looked up around the campfire and into the forest, I saw the Alien Predator as he planned to shoot me with his three-red-dot weapon.”
The next day Phil hiked up to 9000 feet and set up camp near a crossing of trails. After having a gourmet supper of coffee, jerky, and Top Ramen, he cleaned up and left his pans on a log to dry. Phil felt at peace as he stared at the star-crowded black sky.
At two in the morning, a noise woke him. “I reached for my gun and a flashlight.”
Phil pointed his weapon and light straight in the eyes of a four-point buck. “The massive animal looked back at me with his three-red-dot weapon.” Phil shook his head to rid himself of the hallucination. It registered that the dear was licking salt out of the pans Phil had left to dry. He kept still, and the deer wandered off. “I thought I might be the buck’s next meal. Scared me to death. It was a Predator.”
The next day, instead of using a trail, Phil hopped over boulders and followed some cairns up to 11,200 feet to a gorgeous lake, where he could fish. He carefully set up camp, spent the rest of the day fishing, and caught a couple and ate them for dinner.
“I figured I would sleep well, because I was exhausted. But when I laid down, sleep wouldn’t come.” Phil wished he had invited his hiking buddies. Fear was a new sensation in this setting.
In the chilly night air, he began to sweat. “I knew why. I was at 11,200 feet in the Sierra Nevadas with no one around for miles. The Alien Predator was there to kill me; I just hadn’t seen him yet.” If Phil told his buddies about this, they would laugh. But the fear was palpable.
For a few hours, Phil became a sculpture, stiff and unmoving. He tried to shake it off. He focused on cuddly animals, but his fear won. In the middle of the night, Phil moved. In a mind-over-matter effort, he forced himself to stand. He looked at the massive mountains, the shadowy forest, the yellow moonlight. He was not alone. Another presence was with him. Not an imaginary monster. He prayed . . .
“God, why am I so afraid? Why can’t I shake this fear?”
In the quiet of the night, Phil heard the answer in his heart. What do you put in your mind?
Phil had seen a scary movie and then come to the wilderness. What was in his heart had seeped into everything. Fear. Phil had set himself up. Now, peace descended on him. Again, he heard a whisper in his heart.
If you don’t want to live in fear, don’t feed on fear.
“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:1-2 NASB).
What do you spend the most time focusing on? If you don’t want to live in fear, don’t feed it.
Based on an interview with Phil Floyd, June 4, 2019.
Story read by: Daniel Carpenter
Introduction read by: Daniel Carpenter
Audio production: Joel Carpenter
Editor: Teresa Crumpton, https://authorspark.org/
Project Manager: Blake Mattocks
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