My prayer as
my wife and I left the mountain retreat after two days was “Please, God, go
with me back into the valley!” For forty-eight glorious hours there had been no
television, no internet, and only one cell phone call concerning a handicap
ramp construction project.
Deer grazed
on the lower mountain side. Bluebirds graced the nesting box near the one
bedroom house in which we stayed. Both nights we were there, we watched the sun
set beneath a thin layer of clouds that scattered its colors across the western
sky. We were on a mountaintop in more ways than one. We left Sunday morning.
Then came
Monday.
Summer
attendance numbers in the churches were reported. All were down. A young pastor
was forced to resign. Associational leaders found roadblocks interrupting
plans. It rained all day.
What
happened to the mountaintop?
Tucson is a
beautiful city. It is not quite as hot as Phoenix, but it is still surrounded
by the seemingly endless desert landscape. And mountains. Set in a long valley,
the city is surrounded by four separate mountain ranges. Look in any of four
different directions from the middle of the valley, and your eyes are drawn
upward.
Each of the
mountain ranges is surrounded by the valley plain. Find that ideal point, look
in every direction, and you are looking across another valley. You can’t get to
another mountain range without crossing a valley.
Valleys
don’t last forever. Eventually they hit a mountain range or a plateau. You
leave the bottom and head for the top. The same is true of mountains. They
don’t last forever. Leave the mountaintop and you eventually come to the
valley. In fact you cannot get from one mountaintop to another without going
through a valley of some kind.
Jesus took
three of his closest disciples to join him in a mountaintop experience.
(Matthew 17) They were in awe of what they saw. Peter was so dumbfounded he was
left only with the idea of trying to build some form of permanent memorial to
commemorate the event. Jesus refused to even acknowledge the suggestion.
Then they
headed down the mountain right into Monday.
You can’t
live on a mountaintop. There comes a moment when you have to leave and take
only memories with you. Going through a mountaintop experience is like being at
the North Pole. The only way you can go from there is south. The only way you
can go from a mountaintop is down. The only way you can go from a mountaintop
experience with God is back into the valley of life where Mondays often come
more than once a week.
We have the
promise God came down the mountain with us. (Matthew 28:20) We have the
assurance that he will never leave us alone. (John 14) He tells us we can have
the confidence we will never face anything he cannot handle through us. (Philippians
4:13; I John 4:4)
If you stand
in the middle of Tucson and its valley and then pick a straight line and move
forward, the overwhelming odds are that you will soon be climbing a mountain
and heading for the top. You won’t stay in the valley forever. Another
mountaintop experience is waiting for you.
It is a physical
impossibility to move from one mountaintop to another without going through a
valley. What you do in the valley, however, is up to you. Mondays don’t last
forever. Even Mondays can be made into a foundation for a great week when you
walk through the valley with the Lord.
