Climb Every Mountain!

For fun, I enjoy hill walking.  You can't beat the beautiful scenery, fresh air and challenge of a mountain to climb.  When walking, things come to mind which I'd like to share with you.

Hill walking is like life in that we are all on a path.  Sometimes it is relatively flat and smooth but just like a hill walk we also face ups and downs, boggy bits, wet bits and steep rocky bits.  How we get through, over or around them will depend on how we are prepared, and our mental attitude as it is very easy to give up before the end.

The ups and downs of life can be, and often are, the work of the enemy as we are in a spiritual battle, but God allows things so that we can grow as people.  It doesn't feel that way when you are going through it as you can only see the negatives but people develop when challenged.    

When you get to a boggy part you have to pick your way across. Solid ground may be in sight but there are numerous ways of getting there.  I've seen a boy get stuck in the bog up to his thighs. Without help, he could go no-where! That's why we are told to help each other.

Joh 15:12  My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

1Co 12:24-26  But God has put the body together, giving greater honour to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

Do you think that boy got stuck by choice?  No - but the path he chose led to him needing to be rescued.

On a spiritual level, like the boy, no matter how careful we are, we all fail and we are all reliant on God's grace to forgive us and pull us out of the bog.

The end goal - the summit - is the Kingdom of God.  Remember, walking is as much mental as physical, in order to get to the end we have to believe we can do it or we'll give up.  In life, Christ has already scaled the heights for us, so we need to believe in Him.  So take encouragement, look to the summit and don't give up because in Christ we are already there!