Time on the Mountain, Time for the Valley

Mountain-top experiences are great.  They exhilarate, they invigorate, they inspire, and they energize which is surprising when there so much happening.  Chambers refers to Peter, James, John’s mountain-top experience where Jesus was transformed.  It is an ironic and important part of this account that when they descended the disciples were having trouble doing what they had been able to do before, cast out a demon.  They had done that with great success when they were sent out in pairs not long ago.  Peter, James, and John carried this amazing vision, excited, inspired, energized, but return to a squabbling mob.  It becomes quite a reality check for them.

The times I have had mountain-top experiences, like Chambers said, I wanted to stay there.  Peter wanted to build shelters; he wanted to stay there too.  I have also tried to manufacture those times, times where I go away by myself and pray.  The problem is that I’m praying for an emotional spiritual event rather than to meet my Master without distraction.  I live in an area where it is fairly easy to find somewhere alone to pray.  I wouldn’t have to travel very far and find a nice view, quiet, and settle into a nice time with my Master.  But the expectations I carry with me form all the distractions I need to limit my experience of my Master.

The truth I know, but I find hard to actualize, is that I can spend time with my Master anywhere.  My ability to concentrate isn’t great, but still, I can, and have lost myself even in crowds, talking only with my Master.  Granted it doesn’t happen often, but it doesn’t require a lot of travel either.  What I have found key to quality time with my Master is focus on my Master.  Adoration helps, praise helps, and worship helps focus on Him.  In fact, when I have to recover my distracted mind in prayer, I have to use those techniques or it’s not going to happen.  I have learned that I am a poor subject when it comes to talking with my Master, and He is the perfect Subject.  I suspect it is the perspective I gain from making Him the subject, but all I really know is that it works.

I sometimes have to fight my resentment that everything gets to be about Him, and how selfish that seems.  Fortunately I write it or say it, and see how ridiculous that sounds, and the resentment evaporates into the thin air it came from.  How can anything not be about the Maker of the universe around me?  How can everything not be about the One tracing quarks and forming stars and moving entire galaxies?  How, in such a universe, can anything be about me?  Ironically, as I focus on Him, I actually have His attention, and the time from His perspective, is about me (not to the exclusion of everyone else, the quarks and stars as well, but still).  He multi-tasks quality time with me in ways I can never achieve for Him.  

It often helps me to maintain perspective when I accept and internalize that is only about me to the extent I am one of His human creatures, rather than as a distinct individual.  To the individual level, He is certainly aware of me, knows my name, where I am, my very thoughts, and His love never wavers for me.  But that level is only one among the mass of humanity, past, present, and future also in His awareness to that extent, and also enjoying His unwavering love.  Unlike what Hollywood would like me to believe, this world is never about me, what I want, and what I can accomplish.  I do not make my own destiny, but I can fulfill my purpose I was designed to fulfill.  And what I was designed to do is to point to my Master, and put Him on display for all the others with whom I share His attention.

The mountain-top experience can sometimes be experienced in front of a laptop keyboard, in a brisk morning, sipping a warm mocha latte.  In spite of the warmth of the coffee and fleece jammies, I still sometimes feel a chill from my Master’s touch.  And I know it’s not the cool morning air because this touch often brings a tear of inexpressible joy from emotional places so deep within, I didn’t know they existed.  I know when my Master’s Spirit moves within my own.  Sometimes I stop to enjoy the passing, and sometimes I keep going, hoping I will have another chance later.  But the tendrils of the smoky glowing cloud about His feet reach even now into my soul’s recesses.  Here He comes.

And there He goes.  The trick now is to walk with Him through this day.  I have weeds to pull in my in-laws yard with my family.  We have a trip to the city to spend too much money (not really, but it always feels that way), and let my daughter enjoy a skate-park.  The tear trails remain on my cheeks, but reality is coming.  The day begins, and I so desire for the peace to remain with me throughout.  I want to remain on the mountain, but I have a life my Master desires to use for His purposes in this day.  I have work to do.  There are a lot of opportunities to descend into emotional chaos.  But there are just as many to glorify my Master; even if I am the only one around me pointing.  I suppose that’s the hardest part, relinquishing my co-dependent desire to control those around me.  Well, here it goes.  Into the valley I go!

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 1