Thinking
I went on a hike this morning. There aren't too many places to go hiking around here, but one of the best is Spencer's Butte. I haven't been up that in, say 3 or 4 years, but it was definitely worth it. I got to the top in about an hour and ten minutes or so. I sat up there for awhile, just looking out over the valley, listening to the birds and the wind and the distant highway.
As I made my way down I started thinking about the analogies people have made between hiking and our spiritual walk. One of them stuck in my mind: It takes perseverance to make it up a mountain. My body is not in shape and to climb, even a relatively small hill, took a lot out of me. My endurance and strength is not very strong, but when I got to within seeing distance of the top, I realized that despite the ache in my legs, the exertion that made me feel like I was going to puke, that I could make it. And I did.
In the same way we face mountains in our lives, circumstances that look like Mount Everest and we wonder how in the world we are going to get over that. And to be honest, we aren't strong enough to make it by ourselves. I just recently went through these problems with my eye and I wanted to quit, I wanted to just give up. The thing, the person who got me through, was God. He never forsook me and used this to remind me about how faithful He is. He's the fellow hiker who gives you his water, who supports you when you're limping, and who carries you.
He's the one who will get you through these mountains!
As I made my way down I started thinking about the analogies people have made between hiking and our spiritual walk. One of them stuck in my mind: It takes perseverance to make it up a mountain. My body is not in shape and to climb, even a relatively small hill, took a lot out of me. My endurance and strength is not very strong, but when I got to within seeing distance of the top, I realized that despite the ache in my legs, the exertion that made me feel like I was going to puke, that I could make it. And I did.
In the same way we face mountains in our lives, circumstances that look like Mount Everest and we wonder how in the world we are going to get over that. And to be honest, we aren't strong enough to make it by ourselves. I just recently went through these problems with my eye and I wanted to quit, I wanted to just give up. The thing, the person who got me through, was God. He never forsook me and used this to remind me about how faithful He is. He's the fellow hiker who gives you his water, who supports you when you're limping, and who carries you.
He's the one who will get you through these mountains!
