Do Hard things.
That evening, we started late because the afternoon heat had been merciless. 113 degrees. By 9:30 later that night a “balmy” 95 degrees greeted us. Perfect hiking weather if you want to start out saturated in sweat and crystalized salt on your brow.
The first few steps on the Badwater Basin salt flats felt almost magical. Mountains silhouetted against the stars. The Milky Way stretched across the horizon, and a comet streak by, visible to the naked eye. I thought, Wow. This is incredible.
And then no more than a half a mile in our smiles of wonder turned into screams of chaos. Reality hit like a slap across the shins.
We were carrying 8 liters of water each, three days of food, and walking into something we’d never done before. The salt crust, four inches thick, would collapse into muddy silt below. Legs disappeared into the mud. Shoes got stuck. Shins got scraped raw against jagged salt edges Slowly, we left a trail of salt saturated blood.
Seven miles. of this. Just seven miles. Over and over, one step at a time. Then, at the end of the salt flat, the climb from -282 feet to over 11,000 feet loomed ahead. Packs still heavy with water. No rest. No mercy. Just brutal, unrelenting work.
We finally stopped around 3am but the hard work wasn’t done. Our shoes had either shrunk or our feet had swollen, and the salt had practically glued them to our feet. Getting them off? A battle. Getting them back on in the morning? I’m pretty sure some new words were grunted right there.
Two hours of sleep later, we were back on the trail. After refilling our 8 liters of water at the next source, we began charging up the mountain. That’s when the “pain cave” truly revealed itself: heat exhaustion, collapsing onto trekking poles to nap mid step, steep, steep climbs. I realized that somehow, somewhere, my sanity had check out.
At one point, I woke up leaning on my trekking poles while my buddy Wilder patiently waited for me to move wondering if emergency services should be called in. Somehow we kept moving until we forced ourselves to sleep on a steep embankment.
Proverbs 20:30 says, “Blows and wounds scrub away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.”
That night, or series of nights, those words took on a new meaning. The “blows” weren’t punishment, they were refining. Every scrape, every salty post hole, every plunge into mud was stripping away pride, fear, and the illusion that comfort equals progress. Hard things don’t just test you. They purify you, step by salty step.
And here is the thing, Doing hard things isn’t glamorous. It’s sweaty. It’s painful. Sometimes it’s absurd blood soaked shins, salt stiffened shoes, heat exhaustion 8 liter water carries. But it’s exactly in those moments when you body wants to quit, your mind questions every life choice, and you wake up drooling while propped up by your trekking poles that the real work happens. Character. Faith. Humility. Perseverance.
By the end, we didn’t just survive the flats or the stupidly steep mountain. We were changed. not because it was easy, not because it was fun, but because we had faced the brutal, the ridiculous, and the unimaginable. It had shaped us.
The Take Away
Doing hard things isn’t just a trail lesson. It’s a life lesson. Sometimes the challenges aren’t epic hikes. They’re long workdays, difficult conversations, decisions you don’t want to make, or moments of fear and doubt.
Like that seven miles, life will test you. It will scrape your pride, pinch your patience and leave you wondering why you didn’t just turn back when it was easy. But leaning into the challenge, trusting God, trusting the process and keeping your feet moving…it changes you.
Hard things refine you. They reveal what you’re made of. They shape your character And, if you let them, they show you that even when it hurts, even when it’s absurd and stupid, even when you drool on your trekking poles, you’re capable of more than you imagined. And it all because of doing hard things.