On the Mountaintop

Last night I got in my car and drove off into the sunset.  For a few minutes I felt like I did the first week of my freshmen year of college.  It suddenly hit me that I was free.  I could do anything I liked whenever I liked.  I got in my car and drove to the beach.  It was a glorious afternoon, alone and unhindered.  My spirit has felt like that a lot lately, as if I'm standing on a precipice almost able to see beyond the veil into eternity.  God's Word has seemed very real, and His Spirit has been giving me understanding.  


I haven't read Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest in so long, but I picked it up a few days ago when I had a brief and quiet moment.  Here's what I read:

After every time of exaltation we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they are where it is neither beautiful nor poetic nor thrilling.  The height of the mountain top is measured by the drab drudgery of the valley; but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God.  We see His glory on the mount, but we never live for his glory there.  It is in the sphere of humiliation that we find our true worth to God, that is where our faithfulness is revealed.  Most of us can do things if we are always at the heroic pitch because of the natural selfishness of our hearts, but God wants us at the drab commonplace pitch, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship to Him.  Peter thought it would be a fine thing for them to remain on the mount, but Jesus Christ took the disciples down from the mount into the valley, the place where the meaning of the vision is explained.

So last night I drove to the library for a few minutes of solitude, checked out a few random books, then went back home to the place of my glory and humiliation.  There I find sweet little hearts that will grow into my joy and crown.  I also find constant demands for my time and attention where little people cry and whine when I try to tell them, "no," for their own good, a place where all my sin and selfishness comes flowing out of my heart for all to see.

When you were on the mount, you could believe anything, but what about the time when you were up against facts in the valley?  You may be able to give a testimony to sanctification, but what about the thing that is a humiliation to you just now?  The last time you were on the mount with God, you saw that all power in heaven and in earth belonged to Jesus--will you be skeptical now in the valley of humiliation?   

My one-year-old is interrupting my spiritual pondering trying to grab the thumb drive out of the computer, and my four-year-old is whining and pouting because I made her move out of her little brother's way.  Thus begins another day.  It's a good thing His mercies are new each morning and as Anne says, "It's a new day with no mistakes in it yet."

I wouldn't mind going back to that mountaintop.