Mountaintop Experience

by Shelia Gaines

Verse for Thought:
He replied, Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. Matthew 17:20 (NIV)

Last fall, my husband and I went to Clingmans Dome, the highest peak in the Great Smoky Mountains and the third highest peak east of the Mississippi.   There is an observation tower at the top that provides a spectacular 360 degree panoramic view of  the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Simply breathtaking! It made the trip up there worth it, but as the old saying goes; the trip up there is not for the faint of heart.  Although it is a beautiful drive up the mountain, you can only get to the trail that leads to the tower by car.  The rest of the trip is a half mile hike.  Straight up the mountain!  There are benches available for resting along the way and signs advising you to take advantage of them should you become tired or faint. We met a lady who had had knee surgeries and made it as far as the bottom of the observation tower but did not go the rest of the way up the ramp to the top of the tower.   While I sympathize with her condition, it saddens me that she came that far and missed out on the whole point of the trip.  As someone pointed out, the long walk up the winding ramp was nothing compared to the half mile hike to that point.

How many times have you gotten so close to a goal only to fall short at the very end?  What are you doing about that?  Are you trying to have a mountaintop experience without climbing the mountain?   As we walked back down to our car from the tower, we overheard someone tell his friend that it was a good thing he wasn’t told of the half mile hike it would take to get up to the top.  He would have said no and missed out on an opportunity to “see God.”   The reward was definitely worth every bit of the effort.

Let’s pray:
Lord, when there are mountains in my life, please give me strength to climb them, but keep me mindful of my own times I spent in the valley.  Let me consider others who struggle in the climb.  Let me lift them up in prayer and not judge them.  Amen

Take the next step:
Instead of asking God to remove every difficult situation from your life, why not ask him to show you where he is in the situation, what you need to learn from it, and how he wants you to overcome it.  Why not make a list of your ‘mountains” and cross them off the list as you allow God to help you overcome each one?