GROWING IN THE VALLEYS OF LIFE
Mark 9:2-3
And I after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.
The elk were still bugling around us. We had chased this herd all afternoon as they traveled from one mountain ridge to the next and back again. Now the sun was setting and we weren’t going to catch up to them again. We just stood and watched the setting sun light the golden aspen leaves below us. We knew that if we didn’t get going we would be traversing the mountainside in the dark, but we couldn’t move. We were in a place where we could see God’s creation like never before. We stood there until it was dark, listening to elk bugling and watching the colors change across the green and yellow valley below. It was an evening I will never forget.
When it got dark we started down the steep slope. We were hungry as we hadn’t eaten since morning and we had no food on the mountain. All that we had for food was down in the valley in camp. We were exhausted and hungry and we needed to get down off the mountain.
You see, there is very little that grows on a mountaintop, and for that reason, if we had stayed up there we would eventually quit being productive. Most mountain tops are rocky or gravely. There is generally little to no moisture so the only things that do grow are small and stunted grasses and lichens. If you’re up there on top you must come down to be fed.
The same is true for our spiritual lives. When we are on a spiritual mountaintop, it is an amazing experience, but when we are in these figurative places, while it feels great, there is nothing there to make us grow. However, in the valleys below it might be harder to get through, but it’s those spiritual and physical struggles that make us grow.
My dad used to say, “you can’t grow on the mountain top”. He meant that if we lived on a constant spiritually high mountain we would never go through the things that make us grow. Eventually we must come off of the mountain top experience and into the valley to truly grow.
In Mark 9 (above), Jesus takes the disciples that form His inner circle, to a mountain with him and they experience an amazing “God sighting” while they were there.
It was something unlike anything they had ever seen. Most of us have had a similar experience, maybe not as intense, but a “mountain top” experience nonetheless. For me two of my best experiences were worshipping with 40,000 men at a Promise Keepers event many years ago and that evening watching it grow dark in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of southern Colorado. But when the worship event and sunset were over I had to come down from the mountain and return back to my day to day life. I couldn’t stay in the Metrodome in Minneapolis or on that mountain top… no, I had to deal with reality.
It’s a times like those, when suddenly God moves in a way you had never experienced before, that’s a “mountain top experience”. But what do we do with it when it is over? Many of us attempt to relive the same experience everywhere we go. Life doesn’t seem right if one of those experiences isn’t happening all the time or at least right around the corner. We begin looking for an experience instead of living our lives for Jesus.
It wasn’t too long after the disciples mountain top experience that Jesus was put to death and these men came crashing down into a deep valley. Some of these men even undoubtedly questioned if they could go on. But it was during this time, in this valley, that these simple fishermen and others grew into spiritual Giants. It wasn’t on the mountain top… no it was in the valley.
We must remember that God is on the mountain top, but He is also in the valley. He’s right there beside us and in the valleys we take root in His love and His provision, we will grow stronger… He’s there for us in the valleys.
King David reminds us that “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me” (Psalm 23:4)
Are you in a valley right now, wishing you were on spiritual high instead? Remember to “count it all joy” (James 1:2). God has a plan for you to grow in the valley. And He has a plan to bring you back to the mountain top again.
Keep looking up and take root in the nourishment that God provides in the valley….
He’s there with you every step of the way.
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