September is a special month for me. 

For one, it’s the lazy-golden Indian summer month, when the sun is warm but the breeze is cool, and the birds are beginning to exchange their bright summer plumage for more subdued winter hues.  It’s the month when summer surrenders to autumn, when the farmers near my home scrape bare their grassy fields, rolling all the wealth of the growing season into rotund bales of sun-dried hay.  But more than that, more than the sweet-smelling breeze or playful white clouds, it’s the month I return to Colorado.

Every year I look forward to this time with eager anticipation, counting the days and dreaming of this journey.  As August slips into September, I can hardly contain the excitement, and when I’m finally headed west along the interstate, over the plains of Kansas, past the sign that proudly proclaims “WELCOME TO COLORFUL COLORADO,” and up the long, winding road to Estes Park, it feels as if the whole long summer has been leading to this moment.

You see, September in Estes Park is a panorama of beauty, color, and action.  In most locations across the country, tourism is winding down by this time of year; kids are back in school, and the lazy days of summer have given place to more mundane routines.  However, for Estes Park, September is one of the busiest times of the year; during my adventures there, I meet native Coloradans who have come for the weekend from Colorado Springs or Denver, right alongside visitors from Florida, Virginia, Oklahoma, Canada.  One September, I even met a couple who had flown in from Switzerland!  What draws all these people?  They’ve come for the mountains’ biggest celebration ever—the season when the elk come home.

I’ll let you in on a secret—beyond the town council, the mayor, and other elected officials, it’s actually the elk who own the city of Estes Park.  I’m joking, but in many ways, it’s true.  Each spring, the town floods with elk who are giving birth to their young in the protection of this valley.  However, during the summer months after the calves are born, the elk disappear.  They return to the national park, leaving the town empty.  They’ll spend the summer in cool, secluded places on the High Peaks—wandering the windswept alpine tundra or enjoying the lush grass of a mountain pass.  For three months or so, only an occasional elk will be spotted in Estes Park, and even tourists driving the roads of the national park will be unlikely to stumble upon a herd.

But that all changes in September.

September is the time when the elk return, when they come down from those remote mountain passes.  When the aspens glow golden and the night air is frosty, the elk know it’s time to move to lower ground ahead of the coming snows.  So they stream back into the valleys—the glacial parks, or open meadows, as well as the town of Estes Park.

This return of the elk is a sight to behold.  Unless you’ve witnessed it, it’s difficult to describe just how grand and awe-inspiring it is.  I can only tell you that it’s amazing, that it’s majestic beyond anything you can imagine.  During my time in the Rockies, I spent many purple-dusk evenings gazing over a glacial valley still strewn with granite fragments left behind when the last great sheet of ice melted.  The harvest moon rose in golden perfection behind the rough-hewn outlines of the great peaks.  And as twilight deepened the air, the elk filled the valley—dozens of them, neatly arranged in separate herds, each ruled by a massive bull elk.  I watched the bulls—huge, shaggy fellows, with candelabra-like antlers weighing dozens of pounds.  And I watched the cows, quietly nestled in the brush, or delicately prancing across the valley, or (one night) cropping grass only a few yards from me. 

The wind felt chilly, and the dusk approached, and the big bulls became even more exciting to watch as they jealously guarded their herds from interlopers.  As one stretched out his neck and tipped back his head, I heard it—the eerie call, or “bugle,” of a victorious bull elk.  And then, as other males answered his challenge, the evening filled with the sound, ringing off the granite peaks and drifting with the nighttime breeze.  Even later that night, in bed, I could still hear it, and I smiled in my sleep—because the elk had returned. 

Of course, when the elk return to the valleys, they immediately begin infiltrating the town of Estes Park.  I suppose the town is a relatively recent addition to a landscape they’ve ruled for centuries, and perhaps they still consider the city as a mere surface intrusion.  At any rate, they demonstrate a complete and total lack of property rights.  And as you can imagine, several dozen half-ton animals in a tiny mountain village can lead to some mayhem.

Elk are everywhere and anywhere, all at the same time.  I’ve seen them jamming traffic on Elkhorn Avenue, one of the busiest streets, forcing cars to wait patiently while they roamed the roads.  They’re also fond of nibbling a homeowner’s geraniums on Riverside Drive or meandering through Bond Park in the center of town.  Indeed, bull elk will frequently usher their herds right through the downtown district or even spar with rival males on the carefully manicured turf of the local YMCA.  One of their favorite activities is usurping the opulent nine-hole golf course on the outskirts of town, providing an interesting golf experience for patrons (to say the least).  I’ve actually seen a photo of an adventurous elk who had managed to ascend the steep cliffs behind one house and then had made the next logical step—onto the roof! 

You might think that the people of Estes Park would become annoyed with the elk. After all, the giant creatures can be inconvenient, bothersome, and even downright frightening.  It would be easy for the town to view them as a nuisance to control or a pest to eliminate.  However, the opposite is true.   

The people of Estes Park don’t shun the elk or dread their arrival.  In fact, they welcome them!  During “elk jams,” drivers calmly wait, never honking or showing frustration.  The residents who lose their flowering plants just laugh and remark how fortunate they are to live in a place where elk roam free.  And during the last weekend in September, the town hosts the much-acclaimed Elk Festival, now in its twenty-first year—two days of singing, storytelling, traditional dancing, arts and crafts, food, games, and contests, all designed to celebrate the elks’ return. 

For Estes Park, the elks’ arrival is not merely a seasonal phenomenon—it’s a homecoming.  That’s because the elk are seen as a symbol of all the town has to offer—a flagship for Estes Park.  If you visit the town’s official website, you’ll notice that the city emblem is a blue square with rounded corners—“ESTES PARK, COLORADO,” it declares beneath a row of mountains.  And standing on the mountains is none other than a massive bull elk with a tremendous rack of antlers. 

It would be tragically ironic if the people of Estes Park proudly displayed an elk image as their logo, yet shunned the company of the real-life animals.  How hypocritical it would be!  Yet I worry that sometimes, we as Christians can fall victim to the same trap—professing our allegiance to Christ yet squirming from His ruling Presence in our lives. 

We understand that we’re people of God.  We sing His songs, we quote His words, and we might even sport His cross around our neck or on our car bumper.  And just as the town of Estes Park is owned by the elk, our lives belong to God.  He can interrupt us in any way He desires, at any time He chooses. 

All this is solid Christian doctrine, theology to which we can offer an “Amen!”  But if we’re being honest with ourselves, allowing God to work in our lives is a scary concept.  That’s because we instinctively know that most of the time, what God sees as progress resembles mayhem to us.  When His Spirit moves, it is rarely a gentle breeze but more frequently a gale-force wind—a wind that blows our selfish desires out of sight and whips our human plans to shreds. 

Consider the day of Pentecost (Acts 2).  Oh, it began quietly enough.  People from all over Israel were congregated in Jerusalem to observe a festival, and the disciples were tucked away in an upstairs room for a simple prayer meeting.  But that was before God showed up.  In a matter of moments, the rushing wind of the Spirit filled the room, complete with flickering tongues of holy fire.  What a display of the Lord’s power! 

Can you imagine the chaos that must have surely erupted?  Try to envision the scene.  The disciples spilling frantically from their hideout, shouting the gospel in every known language and ecstatically praising God.  Confused bystanders shoving their way through the crowd, seeking to catch a glimpse of these men gone mad.  Mocking religious leaders hurling their judgments.  Indeed, the scene was so disorderly that the disciples were accused of being drunk (Acts 2:13)! 

Messy?  Embarrassing?  Unplanned?  Yes.  But Spirit-filled?  Unquestionably!  Seizing the moment, Peter began an impromptu gospel presentation that led to the salvation of three thousand people (Acts 2:41).  What looked like sheer turmoil was actually the hand of God, igniting the flames of the Christian era.

And it didn’t stop there.  The history of the early church is full of such moments of divine chaos.  Paul, surviving a shipwreck and a snakebite to the glory of God (Acts 27-28).  Philip launching himself uninvited, with no regard for convention, into the chariot of an Ethiopian government official—and thus spreading the gospel to Africa (Acts 8).  A formerly paralyzed man sprinting through the Temple whooping his praise.  Exasperated government officials labeling the saints as “these that have turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6)!  (Would it not be wonderful if we Christians today could earn that title again?)  Moments of chaos, but moments of God. 

But it seems that somewhere along the way, the church ceased to be comfortable with chaos.  Somehow, the Spirit’s power—and what He might demand of us—became not exhilarating but terrifying.  And slowly, we traded a life of miraculous messiness for the unspoken expectation that the Spirit would behave in a tame and orderly fashion, or at least respect our own plans. 

And that’s the root of our fear, isn’t it?  If we allow the Spirit free rein, He might turn our world upside down.  But if we can check His work, our lives will be much more neat and orderly.  Our routines won’t be interrupted, and our plans won’t be hijacked. 

Consider the town of Estes Park again.  Certainly, the elk could be removed.  A squad of animal control officers, a few stout fences, and some strong deterrents, and the elk “problem” would be solved.  And then wouldn’t things be much nicer in the town?  The golf course would be accessible.  The geraniums would be undisturbed.  Traffic would flow smoothly, the turf at the YMCA wouldn’t suffer, and pedestrians wouldn’t have to change their plans to avoid elk.  But to me, to the people of Estes Park, and I suspect to you as well, that plan sounds inexpressibly sad.  The town of Estes Park is all about the elk.  In fact, you might say the elk are the whole point of the town.  They distinguish Estes Park from any other small American town, provide common ground for the citizens, and bring visitors from all over the world.  Without the elk, the town would be pristine…but it would also be dead. 

And just as the townspeople of Estes Park hold the power to banish the elk, we can choose to shun God’s work in our lives.  For me, one of the most sobering statements in Scripture is found in Matthew 13:58:  “And He did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief” (ESV).  Don’t forget:  this was Jesus’ hometown!  The people who scoffed at His message were His friends, His neighbors, His coworkers, maybe even His distant relatives.  This town should have been for and about Jesus.  He should have had free reign to do whatever He pleased.  But notice the word because—He did not display His might because of the people’s faithlessness.  In fact, the Common English Bible (CEB) even translates “He did not” as “He was unable to do.”  Somehow, in ways we don’t understand, our resistance to the Spirit hinders His work in our lives.  Although it seems impossible that the omnipotent Son of God could have been prevented from performing His miracles just because of the skepticism of the people, that’s exactly what this verse implies.  I find that idea very scary, because it proves that in most cases, we are not waiting for God to move, as we often claim we are.  Instead, He is waiting for us to allow Him to do so!

So which is more important—orderliness and predictability, or the wild abandon of grace?  To return to my analogy, when I was in Estes Park, I had my share of elk run-ins.  I was stuck in lines of traffic while the bull elk ushered their herds across the road.  I was awakened at night by the bugles, right in the RV park where I was staying.  I had to be watchful while I was running, and I had to pause on trails while elk crossed in front of me.  But the elk didn’t detract from my experience in Estes Park.  Instead, they enhanced it beyond what it could have possibly been without their presence.  So at the Elk Fest, I joined the community in celebrating the elk and everything they stand for.  With them, the town can be chaotic, but it is also alive. 

So today, take an honest moment to consider the ways in which you might have been limiting God’s work in your life.  Resolve once more to “quench not the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19 KJV).  And then watch for the crazy miracles of God to begin unfolding around you.  Instead of trying to control God, let’s allow Him to control us.  Because a life lived in harmony with the Lord may be chaotic at times—but it will never be boring, it will never be dry, and most importantly, it will never be dead. 

Did you enjoy this post? In what ways have you seen God turn mayhem into melody in your life? Let me know in the comments! For a wonderful song about how God turns chaotic messes into masterpieces, click here. Also, for more information about Estes Park, click here.