by Brandy Webb

I think I listen to music too much, but I was trying to figure out the title for my blog and this title came in my head. Immediately, I had the song from Sound of Music looping in my mind over and over again. I must stop coming up with titles that are also titles of songs. My original title, though, would have been way too long, which was The Mountain May be High but the View is Great Once on Top. 

Obviously, I am using the term “mountain” as a metaphor for trials. It seems lately that a lot of people I know and my family are going through a variety of various trials. I find that sometimes an overflow of trials usually seems to happen around God’s Holy Days but maybe that is a coincidence. However, whatever the reason for this overflow of trials, they seem to be happening all around me. In the past, I would get very overwhelmed. This year I’m trying to take a different approach. I am working on trusting God and not myself to get me through the trials, and because of this I had the idea pop in my head that looking at a trial as a mountain that I must climb, means that once I am on top of that trail there is no telling how awesome the view will be for me.

By now my readers probably know that I like to visualize things to put them in perspective.  Visualizing intangible things in a concrete way helps me either to cope with what I am going through or understand the situation better. 

So, back to this idea of a trial being a mountain put forth along this path that we call life. We first and foremost must acknowledge that we need God’s help to climb the mountain. We need Him to provide the “climbing gear,” wisdom, and understanding to help us climb; and sometimes when the mountain is too steep and overwhelming, we need to learn to let Him carry us. The point is, we have to trust God, believe that He has our best interests at heart, and have faith that we will get to the top. This requires total, complete trust in God with all our heart, and to not lean on our own understanding, so that He can make the path straight for us to get to the top (Prov 3:5-6). In other words, we must let go of what we think is the best route to the top, and pray for discernment, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and whatever else from God, to help get us and guide us to the top.

In addition, we must also be prepared for the top to not be what we expected, but the view is going to be great even if we may not see the best view in this lifetime. This is the hard truth. Life is a series of mountains or, you could say, a mountain range. We have our moments of valleys and smooth times and our moments of cliffs and sharp edges. We get to the top of one mountain to only have to climb another. However, God is with us through it all. He will carry us when we need Him to, make our steps firm along the way (Psa 37:23), and will “Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish” us along the way (1 Pet 5:10). We must always acknowledge that as long as we have the breath of life, God will help us—no matter what—if we let Him. His help may be a beautiful stream in a field of clover, or it may just be a moment of rest in the cleft of a cliff. He works with us all differently.

However, no matter how large the mountain is, our God is greater, and one of these days we are going to see a view that we could never imagine. We will see a view that will make all the mountains of life worth climbing as long as we trust in the Lord our God during this life and hold fast to His truths. So climb every mountain—with God by your side or carrying you on His shoulders—and hold on to the hope of seeing an awesome view.