Higher Places

One of my favorite things to do is to hike into the Cascade Mountains in my state of Oregon. I love the smells, the sights, the animals you encounter, and even the occasional hiker you meet. But, after a few miles carrying the pack, the journey isn’t as comfortable as it was when you started. Your back, hips, knees and feet are telling you that it has been a long hike, and you are ready to sit down for a while; even though you are much higher, the scenery is that much more awesome, and the reality you are enjoying is so much better than the one you left when you started your trek. At that moment, sitting there eating a trail bar and taking some well needed sips from your water bottle, some of the fatigue of the journey wears off as the reward becomes greater than the investment, the joy of nearing your destination starts to replace the tired aching muscles, and the thoughts of what you are going to do during your stay start to clear away the long hours of the trail behind you. A night in your sleeping bag in the clean mountain air, waking up to a breakfast, and coffee made next to a fire becomes a more exciting prospect than winning the lottery, because in a way it is.
Once you are up on the mountain, if the sky is clear, you can view mountains as far as your eyes will allow you to see (I'm getting older, the Mountains are getting farther away...LOL). You can clearly see Oregon’s Mount Jefferson and Mount Hood to the north, and Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Rainer, in Washington State. When you are that high, it looks like it would be just a couple of days hike to get from where you are to those mountains, because from that high place you dont see the distance, the obsticles, the grueling laborious hours of carrying the pack for those extreme distances. For a moment you forget sore legs and feet, the stumbling over an occasional tree root or rock sticking up in the trail, stubbing and bruising your toe (causing the need for great verbal restraint), or slipping on some rocks only to slide twenty feet down the sloped side of a trail taking you a half an hour to get back up to the trail (more verbal restraint), or the sudden rain showers soaking you and your pack, forcing you to stop, take off the pack, and slip the rain cover over the pack full of contents that will keep you alive in the mountains for the next few days...or those moments when you lose your way and end up way off the main trail on some side trek losing hours or even a day to a venture you never intended to take, but because you weren’t paying attention to direction, you get lost, and even finding your way back can be frustrating, as you are chewing yourself out like a football coach to his team at half time when they are down by 14 points.
But, when you finally reach your destination, you are at rest and peace eating a well deserved meal, a cup full of isotonic drink in some flavor that is interesting but not always recognizable, next to a lake, or canyon, or some beautiful place that settles over you in peace, the awe inspiring view, the sounds of the breeze through the branches of the trees, the birds, the rolling rumble of distant clouds, you just want to sit, not move, or think, just taking it in. The stress of any of the challenges begins to melt away, only to become a testiment to the trip, and a story to later remember and tell. You are much higher than where you started, the world below you seems far away, and has so much less influence on your emotions, thoughts, and the desires of your heart. In this place, you begin to reflect on your life, your relationships, you smile and laugh at some of the people and experiances in your life, reliving those moments in your mind and heart, laughing at memories as you are reliving them in your mind, or some tears that come with memories planted deep in the photo album of your soul, and even rethinking conversations from years past like you are there again, because in a way, you are. And at other moments visiting regrets of shortcomings in your character, or disappointment in your words and actions and behaviors that seem to overpower better judgement, walking yourself in your mind through more productive ways to deal with those things in the future.
Those are the moments when I say to myself a personal motto I have spoken and vowed to myself for years of hiking the mountain. My vow is to not come back down from the mountain as the same person I was when I went up. Along with that vow I take the knowledge of the many trips from the years behind me which have become a trail and a hike of their own on a much larger scale, the lessons learned, the mistakes made, the successes, and the failures, culminating into an almost unintended wisdom that has helped me keep my vow to never come down the mountain the same person that I was when I started the journey up.
When I first began hiking I would pack up the mountain with a pack that weighed almost fifty pounds, half of the items in the pack being either uneeded or useless, but through lack of experience, unrealistic thinking, and idealistic hopes, I packed those things enthusiastically not realizing all the extra suffering and pain all those needless things were about to cause. But, through the discomfort and begrudging humility it caused me to see what things were and were not necessary to make it to the high places, and destinations I wanted to go to, and to get there in a condition that made it worth the trip. These days my pack is a little over 20 pounds, each item being of higher quality, better construction, and having a very necessary purpose, and of course the one item that is always a little heavier but the most needful of all is my Bible, its a waterproof Bible lighter in weight than my usual Bible which was gifted to me by a very good Brother in Christ. The words are smaller requiring that I always remember at least two pairs of reading glasses (when you are over fifty you know why you need more than one pair…lol). But it is in that place that so many times the Lord has revealed His Word to me in a way I have never seen it before turning the hiking trip into a gold mining excusion as His Word soaks into my spirit next to a small fire, as the sunlight is fading, and the words are glowing under the light of a headlamp. It is always so surreal to me that as His Word is transforming me in that moment, He is changing me while I am in a place that has remained unaltered and seemingly untouched since the day I first visited it. It reminds me that no matter how much He changes me from one person into another, He Himself remains unchanged, unmoved by world events or time, and perfectly beautiful in all His ways…He has become my Mountain, in the same way the mountain has trained me, God my Mountain has trained me and transformed me.

Even Higher…

If you have made it this far with me into my blog, I want to thank you, my fingers do get a little long winded at times, but there is a much deeper point I want to make about the mountain hiking experiance I have relayed so far. For years now at different times I have taken friends and family up the mountain with me to share the experience and to share the Word of God on the mountain. And of course before we head up the mountain I always remind them of the motto that we never come down the mountain the same way we went up, and so far God has always honored that motto with lifechanging moments where His Word and His Spirit have transformed our spiritual walk in some significant way.
As I have traveled up the mountain, many times alone, and then later with others, I am beginning to realize that the Lord was training me to teach others to go to higher places. To walk in the things of the Holy Spirit that they had always assumed was for someone else, that somehow the “higher places” were for more “anointed” people, or some unachievable level of leadership reserved for only the most notable of Gods elite. It has been an opportunity not only to teach the Word of God, but to walk it out with those who have been pursuing God, and desiring to meet Him on a whole new level. To learn that the God of the Universe wants all of us to come after Him in a higher place than we ever have before. The trick is that I cannot take them there, I can’t carry them there because I am not that strong, I need more of Jesus just like they do, which is why we have to walk up together as a group, hungry for God, all of us seeking more of Him, all of us wanting to see Him in a way we have never seen Him before.
In these last days, God has been raising up leaders who have been to places with God that many followers of Jesus have never ventured to seek Him. These “hikers” have been trained by God on His holy mountain, they have made many mistakes, and had many victories big and small, they have learned what is needed and what is not needed. They have lost their way, and learned to pay attention, and watch for landmarks, as well as learning better navigation skills. These leaders have had to learn to get over their own flesh, to get past their personal strongholds, and to get past many of their weaknesses in pursuit of the God they love. There are so many in a new kind of leadership who have been trained by the mountain, and their time for going up the mountain alone is coming to an end. There is a generation who is becoming very hungry for God, His Word and His Spirit, and yet many of the traditional places for learning the ways of the Lord have become dry, stagnet, and have stopped seeking the Lord in higher places.
My desire in this blog is to encourage both the Leader and the seeker, by Word of the Lord, that a new Church is rising up and she is called The Bride of Christ. She has been being prepared for 2000 years, but she is being made ready for the Bridegroom today. The time for waiting has ended, the time to announce the coming of the Lord Jesus has come, and to make His paths straight. My encouragement to leaders in the Body of Christ today is that the long lonely hike is about to become over run with a new generation of hikers. Many of their backpacks are overstuffed with needless things, they dont have great navigation skills, they dont know what to pay attention to, they will have to get over their flesh, and their strongholds. They will need Leaders who are more like Fathers and Mothers rather than distant “spiritual leaders". They need experienced hikers rather than those who know volumes of information about mountains they have never climbed….It’s time for higher places.

In His Service,
Daniel Paul