Last week I was in Yellowstone National Park for a hiking trip with other pastors in which we explored God’s creation as well as participated in conversation around what it means to get back to a “Jesus Worldview” in the way Christians live out our faith in the world around us.

Every journey into the park was full of wonder at the mountains, rivers, and (of course) looking for all of the wildlife that makes Yellowstone what it is: bison, moose, pronghorn, elk, and bears. By the end of the week we’d have laid our eyes on all of those except the moose–– for something so big, you’d think it would be easier to spot one!

Day after day we looked around for these large representations of the National Park. When one of us would spot one we’d yell out for the others to look and, when it was safe, we’d even stop to take a photo or two. Every sighting was a reward and it is hard to explain what it’s like to be within spitting distance of a wild bison.

As we prepared to wrap up our week, we sat around discussing the difficulty we often find we have seeing Jesus in the midst of all of the busyness of a chaotic world. Our lives are often loud, full, and unyielding. As we reflected on our week away from all of that, we talked about finding Christ in the midst of the majestic mountains and faithful geysers. We discussed the magnificent animals we’d seen and the full meaning of why they call the area “Big Sky Country.”

Yet, it still felt like it would all fade as we boarded airplanes and prepared to head back into the “real world” of life far away from the endless blue skies.

That’s when it hit me. We’d spent the whole week looking around for the presence of Jesus in the really big things: the Grand Tetons, the Yellowstone River, Old Faithful, and, yes, the bison. Of course, we found him there, but there was another moment that came to my mind where he’d shown up as well.

It happened while we were hiking out on one of the trails.

We’d spent a lot of the hike taking it all in and looking for the elusive large animals that could have appeared at any moment yet, only one of them came to us. No, it wasn’t one of the giant black bears we’d carried spray for. Nor was it one of the big racks of a bull moose. No, it was a creature much smaller. As we turned toward a rustling in the woods beside us, a chipmunk darted from the leaves and perched right up on the boot of one of my colleagues. He didn’t hang around but for a moment, resting the pads of his front paws on the edge of the boot and looking up for just a few seconds before darting back off the way he had come. He didn’t even stay long enough for a photo.

It hit me in that final conversation that we’d spent the week looking for Christ in the midst of all of the largeness of “Big Sky” and, yet, his presence came right up to us in the form of one of Yellowstone’s smallest creatures.

I recounted this to my colleagues as we reflected on our coming return to all that life had for us on the other side of the pause. There are so many things that vie for our attention, so many things that distract us, so many things that keep us from finding the presence of the holy in the chaos of busyness. Yet, sometimes we need the gentle reminder that this presence is often is not found in the large ways we look for it to barrel into us and is instead found in the quiet chittering of an unexpected smallness.

I wonder what it would look like if we paused our expectations for where Jesus is supposed to be and instead spend some time exploring where he is coming to us in the small and the ordinary? I wonder what it would be like for us to sit aside our fears, doubts, and self-focused desires to hear the still small voice of the holy in the middle of the craziness of our lives and world?

A voice is still crying out in the wilderness, maybe we just need to look down in the quiet to hear it.

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PHOTO: Taken by the author in Yellowstone National Park on September 15, 2026.