The Mountaintop Experience

I literally had a mountaintop experience the other day.

Literally (yes, I am using this in the correct context with the correct meaning...without exaggeration).

After a series of realistic dreams (that might have been considered nightmares), my morning was dragging. Filled with vivid memories from the past, mixed with the treacherous dreams and topped with a plethora of lies...I felt done for. Worthless, anxious, angry, confused...

What had happened?

And so I went to the mountains.
Partially because I could, and partially because I just needed to get away.

I ascended quickly, blaming the high altitude for my shortness of breath and doing anything I could to take my focus away from the mess of emotions that were threatening to reveal themselves with the tiniest amount of thought. When I got to my final destination, I crumpled in despair.

It had been a while since I had talked audibly with the Lord. Without my daily commutes to school and work, my praying out loud had dwindled and somehow, without the safety of my car...I felt more exposed than ever. While I knew the chances of anyone hearing me were minimal, it didn't matter. My voice could carry and I feared what might come out. To think a prayer feels much different than saying it. Speaking it gives it a certain sense of realness, of admittance... and I wasn't quite sure I was prepared to do that.

I began slowly and tentatively... 'Lord...' 
It was raw, it was ugly...at times it was hardly comprehendible...but it was real.
I told Him the truth about where my heart was, and while somewhere in me I knew it was stuff He already knew, it was stuff I hadn't been willing to face myself. I confessed desires that I didn't even know I still had. I admitted how deeply I had been affected by things, hurt by things...I allowed my weakness to overtake my strength.

I was broken.
Truly broken.
Aware of my own depravity like I hadn't been in a long while.

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness...

It was one of those times when Truth hits in you the face and you recognize how truly desperate you are to be saved, how in need of rescue you are...how you can't do it alone, no matter how strong you feel like you are. One of those times when imperfections and shortcomings are defining of you, but somehow, they still aren't you...because in Christ's strength, in His grace... I have been redeemed.

It was one of the moments where nothing makes sense, but everything makes sense. One of those moments where nothing has changed, but everything has changed. Because the Lord reminded me of who He is, the Lord reminded me that He is sufficient, the Lord reminded me that He is perfectly strong in my weakness.

And that was enough.
In that moment, it was sufficient.

A mountaintop experience.
A mountaintop experience that one inevitably has to come down from.

And so I returned home, still dancing around in my joy of how truly good the Lord is...at least for a few hours, anyway. Eventually the junk started to knock on the walls of my heart, whispering...mocking...enticing back into despair, distrust, the desire to control.

But the feelings don't change the truth of what was told to me on the mountain. Even as I return to 'normal life' away from the 'experience', even as I battle through the lies, the fears, the self-loathing and pride... it doesn't ever change who God is.

I think we too often forget that.
I think we too often get wrapped up in our experiences that we forget to stand on the truth of what we learn in those experiences. We get wrapped up in the emotions and needing to feel that connectivity to the Lord without simply allowing Him to be Lord.

I love what the Lord says and does during the mountaintop experiences. I work at a camp... I see it all the time. But, I love even more how those moments can shape our faith as we learn more about God's character and as we learn to trudge through the valleys, as we learn to fight, as we learn to declare His truths as Truth no matter how we feel.

Oswald Chambers says it well:

After every time of exaltation, we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they really are, where it is neither beautiful, poetic, nor thrilling. The height of the mountaintop is measured by the dismal drudgery of the valley, but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mountain, but we never live for His glory there.

It's a beautiful picture of how the Lord works.
Let's not be so set on getting back to a mountaintop experience that we forget to truly live for Him during the non-peak experiences.

There's a lot of life for us when we are willing to live in the everyday mundanities with the fullness of the Gospel shaping our existence.

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness...

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