So I woke up this morning and read, and it was the glorious passages of Isaiah 24-26(ish).  Then I headed out for an early (not really) a.m. walk.  I wanted to be in the mountains, not around them, so I headed toward the new green slopes.  And I climbed.  It was so steep. 

I was discouraged because my thoughts were so agitated and not at all focused on experiencing God.  I was very irritated with an experience from the night before.  I was bothered by this insistent issue of control I keep witnessing between two people.  It’s really an issue of one controlling another, and it doesn’t seem to lessen.  I hate it, and it causes me to feel (key word) like I don’t want to be around them.  So as I replayed the instance in my mind and as I walked, the more agitated I became.  And then I became agitated that I really didn’t want to be thinking of that at all, but wanted to be drawing near to God. 

I was climbing and it took my breath away.  So I’d rest at intervals and look and ponder.  At first I found I was still carrying my agitation and telling myself not to care and just focus.  I’d look down and see the resort and the life going on and it was so hard to focus.  My eyes would naturally look down at the resort, and I found it took a concerted effort to lift my eyes up and away – towards the mountains higher than I was, higher than the circumstances at the resort.

It was so steep – steeper than I realized.  I would make my goal for the next terrace, or light pole, before my next rest.  I’d pause to catch my breath and look around.  After a period it was more difficult to see specific details of the resort and the life going on there.  It was easier to look up and around at the mountains.  I all but forgot about the situation that bothered me so much.

I hit this incline that was very steep.  I was trying to be conscious of the time and getting back, and truly, it was just that difficult to climb.  I was immensely enjoying the silence accompanied by the sounds of nature.  I could no longer hear the interstate traffic or the workers I passed at the base. 

My head cleared up the higher I climbed – and I found myself marveling at God.  I loved that I was alone.  The Lord began to show me how so many are content to stay at their point of lodging, and don’t even attempt to ascend the mountain of God.  Then when they do, they’re constantly distracted by what they left behind.  They keep looking down and back, instead of around and up.  Like the first part of my climb when my eyes kept drifting back to the lodge, and my thoughts kept focusing on the situation that had me bothered.  But if we will just persist in our climbing, the pull will be less and less, and the drawing towards God will increase.

I hit this really steep incline and I toyed with turning back.  I was still keeping my eye on the time, and besides, I thought, I could do it another day.  I waited at this point, debating within of what to do.  This was the second paint I had considered turning around and just going back.  But something inside of me pushed on, so on I went.

Finally – I finally reached, not the top, but a specific clearing near the top – and to go on would require of me to change directions. I turned, and for the first time I got a perspective of these snow capped mountains off to my left that I could not see at any point before now.  I immediately thought of how I would’ve missed that had I turned back earlier. 

I stood there on this mountainside alone and in awe.    I began to feel the awesome stillness of the presence of God.  I looked down and could no longer see the resort.  Everything was different.  Peace abounded, and the absolute glory of God in the splendor of His creation.  I loved it. 

I spread out my jacket and just laid there on the mountainside.  I knew because of time, I couldn’t go on that morning.  As I had climbed, and gradually lost the pull back toward the resort and the gravitation of my thoughts to my circumstances, the Lord placed a Jason Upton song in my head.  “I was dreaming of the holy city; I was wearing my wings.  Then I looked up and saw a doorway to heaven, and I heard you calling me:  ‘come up here, come up now, my beloved, my beloved.  Come up here, come up now, my beloved, my beloved.’  I want to fly like an eagle in the sky.  I want to fly through that doorway in the sky.” 

And as I climbed, I heard the Lord whisper in my inmost being “come up here, come up now, my beloved.”

I didn’t want to leave.  I liked my circumstances and my lodging out of sight and faint in my mind.  I loved the peace and presence of God that was here.  But I recalled an Oswald Chambers’ entry that spoke of the mountaintop experiences and the need, almost insistence, to return to the “demon-possessed valley”.

I looked over at the gondola and I recalled Much-Afraid in Hind’s Feet on High Places stepping out in faith to cross the precipice and the gondola taking her.  I thought of her slow and painful ascent to meet with the Shepherd on the Most High Place at the top of the mountain.  The climb had been difficult and precarious and beautiful and lone and dangerous – just to name a few.  And when she finally hit that point just before the summit, there was a stone altar.  She knew what she needed to do.  She laid herself on the altar and attempted to tear out the root of self-love.  She couldn’t do it by herself, though, and sought the robed priest to bind her to the altar and remove the root.  She was afraid if he didn’t bind her to the altar, she would struggle against him and the pain.

I did that last year.  I’ve laid my heart on His altar and given Him permission to take that bitter root in me.  And He did.  All this came to mind again as I laid there on the mountain.  The moment was sacred to me and I wanted an altar – something to indelibly mark this moment.  I erected an altar in my heart and sought a sacrifice.  What?    I’d already given Him everything – my life, my dreams, everything. 

This Jason Upton song came to me:  “To You I give my life – not just the parts I want to.  To You I sacrifice these dreams that I hold onto.  Your thoughts are higher than mine.  Your words are deeper than mine.  Your love is stronger than mine.  This is no sacrifice.  Here’s my life.  To You I give the gifts Your love has given me.  How can I hoard the treasures that You designed for free?  To You I give my future, as long as it may last.  To You I give my present, to You I give my past.  This is no sacrifice, here’s my life.”

I’ve given it.  So I recommitted my life to my Creator as a living sacrifice.  Here’s my life, dear Lord, here’s my life.  It’s Yours to do with as You please.

Then I recalled that Much-Afraid, after joining the Shepherd at the summit and getting her hinds feet and new name, looked back down the mountainside to the valley below where her family and friends lived – and knew she must go back down.  I knew, too.