Trusting the expert

Once Matt and I got married, he introduced me to the music of a southern gospel group that he liked.  He had met them while his dad was still alive and singing in a group himself.  I had never heard of Four by Grace but I find that I really liked their music.  Of course they covered many well known favorites along with writing a few originals along the way as well. 

There was one song that seemed to be the "funeral song" at every family members service in the years that we were together. It's very slow and only one voice with the swell of a piano as the song reaches its climax. The songs title, Mountain Climber. The premise of the family in playing this song always was the climb of the spirit of the one who had passed to heaven as the final journey, especially since there is a line in the first verse that says just one more of many mountains. As I was sharing the song lyrics with a friend one night, the weight of the words struck me. I'm going to try to explain what He was showing me. 

In Psalms, scripture says "Lord I will lift mine eyes to the hills, knowing my help is coming from you." What do we do? We take what is a hill, a little bump in the road and we pile upon it. We weigh on it and study it, giving it every moment and thought of our day. We pile a little more and a little more on it day by day, moment by moment until what would have been simple to walk over or go around has now become so high that we can't see a way out. What was our narrow path with Him has now become our own man-made valley between the mountains also of our own making. 

So here we stand at the base of this mountain with nothing left to do but look up. We begin to cry out to God asking for Hiim to get us out of this valley. Of course He is right there to guide us over this mountain once again. The chorus says "I'm a mountain climber, but I never climb alone cause there's One who's 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 to will be conquered by the mountain climber and I." 

Step by step, He guides our way. We look at what lies ahead and in our fear and in our weariness we cry "God, I'm tired. I'm scared. I don't think I can do this. I don't think I'm going to make it."  But, His help is there. He looks at you and says " Child I'm here and I want to help. Remember, I made this same journey that you are taking now, but I did it alone. I know you're tired. I was too. I know you're weary. So was I. But here, take my hand child. With my strength, you can keep climbing."

As you put His hand in yours and take those steps together, you feel strength returning to your weary soul. Before long, you reach the top of the mountain together. The ground flattens out and you are right back on your journey. How you walk on this journey will determine how long before you are right back in this same situation. Do you keep Him close, just two friends sojoirning together?  Or do you say thank you for helping me climb that mountain, I'm all good now. See ya next time. 

 

He will help us climb every time we need Him but His plan and design for us is to stay on that straight and narrow path. The enemy will try to trip us up enough without we ourselves making it any easier for him. But that is exactly what we do when we get to the mountain top and tell God I'll see ya next time. If He's already been there and made it through, why would we not want the expert to be our guide? If you're going to climb Everest, are you going on your own, with a rookie climber or someone who has done it before and lived to tell about it? I'm going to trust the expert.