Bivy

“It will let up any minute now!” – a statement we now view as more of a joke

Bivouac. Or bivy, for short. Because few of us can actually pronounce “bivouac” properly. Either way, it is just a fancy word for waiting.

And yet, it is more than waiting. It is waiting on steroids. Take normal waiting, say, before a doctor’s appointment or standing in line at the DMV, and add wind, rain, mosquitos, hail, or snow. Or all of the above. Lower the temperature to a level that you can barely survive, squeeze your body into the smallest space you can find, and wedge some sharp rocks into various sensitive parts of your anatomy. Then wait. And if you really want to experience a true bivy in the technical sense of the word, keep waiting for at least a night. Keep waiting until conditions improve or you are rescued.

We have never had to bivy overnight, thankfully, but we have had some serious waiting times in the wilderness. These “bivies,” as we call them, are never our choice. But when conditions are such that it is not safe or even possible to go forward – or backward, for that matter – then we are forced to wait.

We experienced several of these types of bivies during the many storms in the Wind River Range this past summer. Most of these occurred in a place that we affectionately refer to as “under the tarp.”

When we backpack, we spend several days hiking. We sleep in a new spot every night. It is physically demanding not only to hike long distances in the mountains, but also to carry all of the things we will need to spend a few days eating and sleeping outside. We are constantly going over every item in our bags to see if there is anything we can leave behind in order to shed some weight. But one thing that we will always deem worthwhile to carry is our two lightweight tarps. When we set up our tents and sleeping bags each evening, we also make a lean-to with the tarps by attaching them to a cliff or the side of a large boulder. Then we are ready for the rain and storms that always seem to come in the evening. There is, arguably, just enough room for the seven of us to squeeze under the tarps with our dinner and wait out the weather. Then at least we can be together instead of being separated in our tents.

Clad in our ponchos and hunched over beneath the angled roof of the tarps, we arrange the rocks beneath us and try to find a level spot for our fuel canisters and for our behinds. We look at each other grimly and we make jokes that are not very funny and we laugh – an uneasy, “I-am-really-tired-and-wet-and-this-laugh-could-turn-to-crying-at-any-second” type of laughter. And we try – we really try – not to complain as the cold wind blows through and as the rain makes its way into all of the gaps on the sides of the lean-to.

 As luxurious as all this sounds, it doesn’t always go smoothly. After all, it is not possible to tend a pot of rice, balanced precariously over a tiny blue flame, while holding on to a tarp that has come loose and is flapping violently in the wind, smacking you in the face and allowing rain to funnel into your lap. It is possible, in fact it is probable, that someone will burn their hand on their stove at this time. It is also probable that you will spill your dinner on the clothes you planned on wearing for the entirety of your five-day backpacking trip. At least all of this action helps to pass the time. And at least the tears add some salt to your soup . . .

Yes, under-the-tarp times are epic when it comes to waiting. We now have songs and quotes to pass down for generations to come that capture the strong emotions we feel when we are waiting together under the tarp.

But as trying as under-the-tarp bivies are, they do not compare to the times we are caught off-guard when we don’t have the tarps set up.

On one such occasion, we were all trekking off-trail high up in the mountains. We were a two-day hike from the car. Although the day had started out calm and sunny, by the afternoon we noticed the clouds gathering from two different directions, forming a “V” in the sky. We were at the vertex of the “V,” which was headed right toward us.

Thunder growled louder and louder and hail began to fall. It started out as tiny beads of ice that pelted our skin as we ran, frantically looking for some place to shield ourselves. Then it grew to the size of large peas that stung our exposed hands and ricocheted off our heads.

As lightning crashed around us, we all sprinted to some low bushes. We threw our hiking poles and any other metal we were carrying out away from us. Then we put our big, bulky packs in the bushes and we squatted next to them, keeping ourselves small and low and making sure only our shoes touched the ground by gathering our ponchos into our arms and hugging our knees. We were completely exposed. The majority of the landscape was granite, which we recently learned is as attractive to lightning as a metal rod.

In this position we waited. We waited until our legs were so cramped that we felt like they would be stuck that way forever. We waited as hail piled up in the folds of our ponchos. We waited with hearts racing as we watched the lightning strike the peak that was near us. We waited until we thought the clouds were breaking and then we waited some more as another round of storms came through.

It was torture. We tried singing through it. We tried playing games. We tried staring in numb silence. We tried shouting in defiance at the storm. But nothing could change the fact that we were stuck – shackled beside these tiny bushes in a raw and terrifying wait.

It felt like forever, but eventually the storms ended and we continued on our way.

Our wilderness “bivies” can feel really long. They test our patience. Sometimes they can be harrowing. But so far, they have all been over in a few hours.

In the Christian life, times of waiting can last for years. They can be much more difficult than a few hours under the tarp. They not only try our patience, but they test our faith.

Are you waiting? Waiting on God to answer your prayer? Waiting for Him to fulfill the desire of your heart? Waiting for Him to change you or to change someone you love? Waiting for Him to guide you or provide for you or heal you or vindicate you?

Waiting is a serious test of our trust in God, because we cannot do anything while we are waiting. Like our time on the mountain waiting for the storm to end, we are “stuck.” We cannot change our circumstances. We cannot try harder. We cannot work on the problem. We simply have to wait. And it is absolutely frustrating if we do not understand that God is completely able to take care of things in His time and in His way. Our level of anxiety reveals how much we are actually relying on ourselves instead of God.

David felt the pain of waiting for God. He expresses his desperation in Psalm 69, when he is begging for deliverance from his enemies. In verse 3 he says:

I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched.

My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.

But then later in verse 13 he expresses his trust in God’s ability and His timing:

But as for me, my prayer is to you, O LORD.

At an acceptable time, O God,

In the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.

And at the end of the chapter David does what he often does. No matter how broken-hearted he is, when he comes to God with his pain it seems he cannot help but turn from despair to praise. If you read the book of Psalms you will see that he does this over and over again. This Psalm is no different:

I will praise the name of God with a song;

I will magnify him with thanksgiving (v. 30).

Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves in them (v. 34).

In the book of Genesis, chapters 12-21, we can read the story of a man and his wife – Abraham and Sarah – who also had to wait for God. But they didn’t handle it so well. God had promised that they would have a child together, even though they were too old to have children. But it would be 25 years before that promise was realized. It was a long wait. So long, in fact, that they tried to take matters into their own hands. That turned out to be a disaster.

What Abraham and Sarah forgot during their wait was that God sees the whole picture. They were a part of an incredible masterpiece that God was making – and like a brush-stroke of paint on a canvas, they could not see what they were a part of. They were waiting for the blessing of a son and descendants to bear their name, but God was doing more than that. In His perfect time, God was starting a line of people through which He would eventually send His only Son to redeem the world. What He had in mind was much bigger than Abraham and Sarah realized. And He didn’t need their help to make it happen.

We, too, can get impatient when we are waiting on God. We may be tempted to manipulate our circumstances like Abraham and Sarah did. But we must remember that God works in His time and in His way for good (Ecclesiastes 3:11; Isaiah 55:8-9; Romans 8:28).

Besides, what are we waiting for anyway? Look again at what David says. He says it more than once:

And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?

My hope is in you (Ps. 39:7).

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,

for my hope is from him (Ps. 62:5).

If you are going through a “bivy,” get comfortable. Rest in God and stay under His wings. It will be better than being “under the tarp.” In fact, you may, like David, be unable to help yourself. You may just forget what you were waiting for and break out into praise!

© 2025 by Anchor & Fish Ministries. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the ESV^® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version^®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Used by permission.  All rights reserved.