Mountain View

Moments of rest, unplanned, unexpected, given like a beautifully wrapped gift.  He knows just what we need to calm the inner part of our inner self.  

 I don’t think we realize how many days to months, maybe even years, that we’ve been pushing too hard, trying to survive the ever bullish circumstances that life inevitably presents. 

Though I reason that we are in a constant spiritual battle, the battle weariness is real.  Living on defense gets old and the layers of unaddressed mental, emotional and even physical build up can be astounding.  I intentionally take the little moments of rest and relaxation along the way and try to make them enough. Lately, I’ve felt desperate for an extended kind of rest.  I give it over to prayer and wait for opportunity.  

Like Moses (Exodus 19), Elijah (1 Kings 19), and Jesus to the mountain (Matthew 14:23)…a total disconnecting place, where there are no distractions, no possible interruptions.   The examples above didn’t find rest for their souls because of the mountains, the mountains were the way in which they could physically position themselves for a spiritual posture. 

A sacred place for a sacred pause. 

Sacred, because of Who we find there. 

A safe place to lay ourselves down, lay our hearts open and kneel, face down, humbled before our King.  

Layers of battle wounds, unimaginable grief, mental fatigue, perhaps even flesh old sins that we default to or habits we choose instead of choosing Jesus.  Whatever the layers may consist of, we stand in desperate need for extra time with Him than what we may normally give.

Rest offers a reality that no other posture can.  Like seeing a reflection in the clarity of teal blue water.  You can’t deny or will away that kind of status check.  It’s an opportunity to invite the greatest Examiner (Hebrews 4:12-13) to open our eyes, open our ears and let Him be the safest place for all we must decompress.  

The past few weeks have been this trek up a mountain to be with Him.  The opportunity to let Him finish something He started.  The ending of a chapter He’s been closing and the beginning of a new.  A promise He made, a promise He kept, “…See, I am doing a new thing!” (Isaiah 43:18-19). The transition has taken so much longer than I thought it would, than I wanted it to.  But then again, patience has never been a strength of mine.  Thankfully, “His grace [truly] is sufficient for [me] and [His] power is made perfect in weakness...” (2 Corinthians 12:9). 

I thought I’d find His healing in the Caribbean,

but instead He found me in the rainforest.  

The music of the forest will forever be etched in my soul and in that space I just…let Him.  Let Him sing His song over me (Zeph 3:17), let the wild places around me give way to Him welding the fractured places in me.  A bond stronger than before. 

We certainly can find Him in the predictable, controlled, and clean boundary lines, like the sea rolling to the shoreline.  We build a lot of confidence there, calculating the tides and making menial adjustments.  I like the peace I feel in the predictable sound of the waves, basking in the warmth of His light.  It’s a safety I try too hard to hang on to. It doesn't take a lot of faith there, until the unexpected inevitably comes, like a storm reaching our shoreline.

But what about daily life?  It’s not usually spent on the beach, is it?  When we go with Jesus, we find ourselves off of our preferred path, climbing the side of a mountain, having to fully rely on His guidance for every step.  In order to live out our faith, we have to be willing to follow Him into the vibrant, unpredictable beauty of whatever wilderness He’s called us to. 

 I used to describe my life as “hard”, and it has been, and it still will be, but I think there’s a new inscription reflecting back at me. 

“I made it”

because He brought me through.

 I’ve learned that prophesy always gives way to testimony.  And I am a kind of living testmony of His ever saving grace (2 Corinthians 3:2-3). 

In the wild hike up the mountain, I sought the light of day, the view from the top. It's in this place I reflect on the journey. I know that joy and sorrow can hold the same space.  Pain and praise can hold the same space.  Chaos and beauty can hold the same space.  Unexplainable circumstances and unexplainable peace can hold the same space.

 I wrote in A Great Exchange that “ we can’t take God in the pieces we can handle”, it’s still so true.  If we don’t allow Him to lead us into the wild places of faith, we’ll never experience the magnitude of the God we serve.  We’ll never fully understand the greatness of Christ’s love on the cross.  We’ll never feel like we’re home until we’re wrapped within the grace only His mighty Spirit can bring.  

Every day is an opportunity to choose to live following Him or trying to prevent the things we don’t want.  We don’t have that kind of control.  We must surrender to the reality that we can live in anxiety or live in faith, the choice is ours.  True, living by faith is a different kind of hard than living with stress from “what if” questions that can consume us.  Faith isn’t passivity or avoidance either, but rather a bold, intentional stance of trust in the loving heart of our Father. 

We will often wonder if we’re on an actual trail or if He’s making it as we go.  We will slip on the muddied path, we will get cut by the sharp realties, we will lose our footing on the slippery rocks of doubt or fear, but it’s there that we will find His strong arm grabbing hold of us, pulling us along or even carrying us as He soothes our anxious hearts…

“I’ve got you”.

(Psalm 139:10)

Right there, helpless in His arms, we find the healing within His peace, within the contentment, within the acceptance of Him holding us.  He knows the way and He IS the way and we can know in that place, we’re finally going to be okay.