Mountain Climber

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again expecting a different outcome. But is it insanity if you do the same thing because you know no other way? For as far back as I can remember, people that were in a position of spiritual authority for me would constantly ask me the same question, "How many times are you going to go around this same mountain?"  It was a question that I could not answer. I was in a spiritual wilderness, wandering and waiting, hoping that one day I would make it to the promised land.

The issue with what was occuring for me was a bit two-fold. One: I was raised in a church that told me that if I was saved I was ok. And two: how was what I was doing different from what others around me in the church was doing? Why did I feel guilty for it and "unsaved" and they are in a position of leadership? Even as a teenager, I constantly stayed in an alter begging God to cleanse me and "rededicating" my life to Him. Then reaching the point of saying that I obviously wasn't saved because if I was my life would be different. 

However, I learned something within the past two weeks that no one had taught me before. There has always been a longing within me for more of Him that I did not understand. Last week, my pastor preached a message from Song of Solomon. Truth be told, the only time I had ever heard this book mentioned was around Valentine's Day and used as a comparison between our physical love and attraction and the way God feels towards us.  But what my pastor taught was deeper than that.  The way in which the bride longed for her lover is a reflection of how we are to long for a relationship with Christ. 

During that message, my pastor made a statement about the mountains we face in our lives and how we have to learn to climb them. Each time we come to a mountain, we can either let it defeat us or we can learn from the past that we are mountain climbers.  I always thought I was a failure because I kept going around and around the mountain. I had all the folks tell me I was wrong for going around and around but I had no one to teach me how to climb. 

"What's that up ahead? It looks like another mountain I must climb. Just one more of many mountains but I'm sure that I'm gonna make it.  Just like all the others, they won't trouble my mind. As I stand here gazing at this mountain I know it soon will be left behind.  I'm a mountain climber and I never climb alone. Cause there's One whose always with me and the way He has always shown. So together, we'll take this mountain though it seems to reach the sky. This mountain too will be conquered by the Mountain Climber and I.  And you know there are times we all get to thinking, and our feet won't let us take another step. But if you listen, you can hear Him whisper "Child I'm here and I want to help. Just remember I made that same journey but I had to make it alone. So here's My hand together we will conquer, with My strength you can keep climbing on."

I've faced my share of mountains within these past few years, things that at any other time would have caused me to lay right back down and wallow in my self and lead me to go around the mountain again. I would be lying if I said I had not thought of "the easier way". Looking at it though, it truly wasn't the easier way. I may have slipped and struggled to gain footing at times, but that hand was never far away when I called for Him. Step for step He has guided me over many rocky summits, through deep ravines caused by rock slides and shielded my as boulders tried to fall on me to crush me.