Mountain Tops and Valleys

Lots of great things happen on the mountain top. Christ rejects Satan's offer of power and is transfigured in the presence of friends, Moses receives the Ten Commandments, Elijah hears the voice of God. In a more modern day context, Martin Luther King, Jr. travels to a visionary mountain top and has a dream about what could be possible in race relations. Mountain tops hold the power of providing a place where some pretty amazing things happen.

"Mountain top" experiences are those times and places where we have found a deep and profound connection with the divine that moves us to the next level in our spiritual lives. I've been fortunate enough to experience many of those in my life. One such experience was years ago when I took a youth group on a mission trip to a camp known as Mountain Top. We ate and slept at the camp, but during the day we were at the homes of the poorest people in the smoky mountains doing repairs and helping them have a more comfortable life. It was truly a mountain top experience.

This camp had a song that we sung about the mountain top experience and the fact that we would eventually have to return to the valley below. The valley is where we live, not just physically, but spiritually as well. Most of us don't experience the sustained spiritual high that we find on the mountain top. Up there God is so clear and obvious and we find a certain kinship with the people who join us on the mountain. Down below our vision of God becomes a bit clouded by the regular comings and goings of life.

I think the key is the difference between going up the mountain to get to the other side, or going up the mountain only to return to whence you have come. If I have a mountain top experience and I don't take steps to allow it to propel me forward, I might as well return to the place I started. The journey up the mountain becomes more of a sight seeing tour than an odyssey that is life-transforming.

In your journey of life, have you scheduled some mountain top visits? Maybe Sundays at worship can become a short hike up a hilltop. One or two hours devoted to worship won't make a mountain top, but it can be a series of small peaks that help you move forward in your faith. What about days of service like our recent 100,000 meals project? Spiritual retreats like Walk to Emmaus, the Good Shepherd Womens' retreat, or other such weekends can be journeys up the mountain. Or maybe you can serve in a week of camp or a weeklong mission trip. Whatever it is, head for the mountain top as often as you can schedule it.