Climb Every Mountain

I have a new fascination.

Mountains.

Yes, mountains. Climbing them, reading about them, pictures of them, you name it – I’m in. I recently read Jon Krakauer’s book, Into Thin Air, chronicling his 1996 ascent of Mt. Everest; it sparked something in me I didn’t know was there.

I want to climb stuff.

This makes no sense to me. I’m not particularly athletic (read my previous blog about my running experience), and I don’t like discomfort. My idea of ‘roughing it’ is a hotel without an indoor pool. I like my creature comforts – hot coffee, hot showers, and soft chairs. Oh, and indoor plumbing. Definitely indoor plumbing. With flush toilets.

But something in me seems inexplicably drawn to this challenging sport. I find myself googling various peaks, and have begun following some climbers on my social media networks, including a 69-year-old climber who is preparing to summit Everest twice in two months (he’s previously summited Everest); a rare feat for anyone, much less a 69-year-old.

Last week, I had the opportunity to test myself a bit in this area. Thursday morning, I woke up, packed my backpack with Gatorade, water, some tissue (!!!), my Bible and my journal, and set out.

I had no idea what I was doing.

All morning, the Lord had been speaking to me; “I lift up my eyes to the hills; from where does my help come from?” (Psalm 121:1) ran through my head as I walked over the cattle guard and out into the wilderness. My stomach was in knots – I was psyched. I just knew I was gonna climb something.

I’d never been on this particular piece of land before, and had no clue what the lay of the land looked like. As I tramped down the road, I heard my next direction: “Follow the deer.”

Yeah, you guessed it. Just then, a family of deer crossed the road about 100 yards in front of me. When I got to where they had disappeared into the brush, I turned to see two decent-sized hills in front of me.

“That where we’re going?”

“Yep.”

So up I went. I loved every step. Every step. My ankles screamed at me as various rocks caused minor twisting and turning. My lungs rebelled, reminding me just how long it’s been since I took my cardio seriously. The pack on my back with its full bottles of liquid and books got heavier and heavier the higher I got, but I didn’t care.

I was climbing.

When I reached the top, I turned to face where I’d been. It was simply stunning. Spread out before me was the raw, rocky, craggy beauty that is west Texas, scrub brush and cacti dotting the hillsides. I know I couldn’t have been higher than a few hundred feet, if that, but I felt a sense of accomplishment, nonetheless.

Mountains figure quite prominently in scripture. There is the ‘mountain of God’ referenced in Exodus 3 and Psalm 48; Satan tempted Jesus on a ‘very high mountain’ (Matthew 4:8). There’s the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ in Matthew 5-7; Jesus ‘went up on the mountain’ and taught his disciples.

And then there’s that whole thing about ‘moving mountains’ (Matthew 17:20, 1 Cor. 13:2). Mustard seeds and faith; now there’s something I could ponder for a bit.

But the reason I was up there that day had nothing to do, really, with any of those things. He took me up there to show me who HE is, who I am, and how those two things mix. We wrestled (well, mostly I wrestled; He waited while I wrestled), I cried, He talked, and I was healed.

See, I carried something up there that was never mine to carry. My pack was heavy, because I had been carrying around the most weighty of issues. I was bowed over, bent down, and, to be blunt, found myself depressed.

Me?? Depressed?? But … but … I’m a pastor’s wife, for crying out loud! I’ve got a great marriage, great kids, an abundance of friends, but I was depressed.

Huh. Revelation hurts sometimes; know what I mean?

What He revealed to me on that mountain (humor me) was that I doubted. Doubted Him – whether He was good, whether He loved me, whether or not He was actually even there. I had been WORKING REALLY HARD to convince myself all this was real, but if I were able to talk myself into these things, then I wouldn’t need Him. I wouldn’t need grace.

I was disobeying, too. I knew he’d called me to some things, and I didn’t want to hear it. There was too much pain involved with saying yes; I felt like He was hanging me out to dry.

But I desperately needed Him; desperately needed grace. How do we expect to be truly happy when we’re living apart from His will for us?

Up on that hill, I let fly. I cussed (yeah, get over it), cried, yelled, stomped, cried some more, stomped some more, and generally wore myself out. He waited patiently, occasionally interjecting some truth or another, breaking down all my arguments, until.

Until.

Somewhere in the melee, somewhere in the raging, there came a calm. A peace. A sense of completion, a resolution.

“You done?” He asked.

“Yep.” I answered. “You done?”

“Yep.” He said.

And that was that. It was gone. I left doubt on that mountain; I brought back trust. I left depression; I brought back joy. I forgave, got healed and experienced a new level of freedom. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.

Can’t wait for the next one.

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