Mountaintop Experiences

This past weekend my family and I were fortunate enough to visit the Land of Branson--an almost mythical land where time stopped in about the 1950's. We visited the beating heart of Branson, Silver Dollar City. We really did have an excellent time, and the trip was perfect for my two young boys. We went underground into a real cave (not the normal fleece blanket draped over pillow cushions). And we got to ride all kinds of "Wacky-Worm-Esque" roller coasters, while stuffing our guts with peanut brittle and sarsaparilla.

At one point, my wife and I got away from the kids to go jump on "Thunderation" an actual adult-sized roller coaster, one of the wooden ones that throw your spine out of place. One the way up, and down, and then up again, and down again, and then corkscrewing all around, my stomach tried to veto the buttery succotash I had just loaded up on. Luckily, I was able to by executive order keep it down. After we got off the ride though, and even for the rest of the day, I never could quite shake that sick-to-my-stomach feeling. The ride started off great. The excitement of going up was awesome. But the constant up and down over and over again made me not want to get on another ride.

I find this to be so true in each day that I try to believe in and follow God in my life. I have wonderful ups, wonderful mountaintop experiences, but then the downs always make me sick to my stomach. I easily become intimidated and hesitant of allowing myself to enjoy the ride.

I happened to be reading the story of Elijah this past week, found in 1 Kings 18-19. In this particular part of Elijah's story, I found myself empathetic to Elijah's situation. In 1 Kings 18, Elijah just experienced a truly colossal and life-affirming victory. On top of a mountain, Mount Carmel, Elijah wagered his own life against the life of 450 others. Elijah not only won his wager, but absolutely embarrassed his opponents. Elijah bet his life on God showing up, and God did. God didn't just show up, but God also proved he was undoubtedly the superior spiritual and physical force when compared to the god of the other 450 prophets. Elijah was basking in God's realness, and would've felt the soul-satisfying feeling of being higher than any other object around him. He was having a truly classic mountaintop victory.

However, in the very next chapter of 1 Kings, because of the victory Elijah had been champion of, the opposing, losing forces put a bounty on his head, forcing Elijah to flee for his life. Though Elijah was figuratively still within arm's reach God's undeniable presence, Elijah decided to plunge himself into the wilderness in an attempt to escape his pursuers. Though Elijah had just tasted God's realness and victory, he found himself now alone in the wilderness saying, "I have had enough, Lord. Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died."

Though Elijah is only very recently removed from undeniable proof that his God is undoubtedly real--and not just real, but loving towards him--Elijah becomes ready to give up hope. In fact, after confessing that he is ready to die, he lays his head down under a tree, spent, with no more will to go on.

We feel spent, in some form or another, almost every day, don't we? Or is that just me? Don't we quite often feel like we've tried our best, but come up short? Whether it be in our job, or a relationship, or in the internal battles we fight within our own selves, I think we very regularly feel "down for the count". We are no strangers to wanting to "throw in the towel" and lay our head down on the mat, or on our pillow, ready to let our pursuers overtake us. I think we go through a lot of days only one or two random events away from giving up.

What we need to hear, and what I believe to be true, is God has no intentions of letting that happen. In Elijah's story, God sends Elijah just what he needs to get up and get going. God provides Elijah the motivation to get up again and move forward. God tells Elijah that he still has a journey ahead of him, that the end is NOT nigh, that there is more ahead. Elijah gets up, puts one foot in front of the other, and journeys on.

Eventually, Elijah finds himself back in the presence of God, back in another mountaintop experience. Elijah finds himself conversing with God on Mount Sinai. On top of this mountain, God asks Elijah, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" To which Elijah explains that he is fleeing for his life, and can find safety no where.

I find it not necessarily odd, but at least significant, that God would ask, "What are you doing here?" Because surely God already knew every detail of Elijah's situation. If God is God, then he would know the exact plight that Elijah was facing. God could not have been clueless of Elijah's situation, so God must have had other intentions when he asked, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" We can make a guess at God's true intentions by continuing with the chain of events and questions found in the rest of 1 Kings 19.

After Elijah summed up his plight to God in verse 10, God tells Elijah to go stand on the mountain. The mountain is then subsequently hit with a mighty windstorm, then and earthquake, and then what must have been something altogether more terrifying, some kind of fire that engulfed the mountain. Yet, with each destructive force that assailed Elijah's mountain, it says that "the Lord was not in the wind/earthquake/fire." When the fire had passed, then came "the sound of a gentle whisper." And when Elijah heard that gentle whisper, he knew that it had to be his God.

After hearing the whisper of his God, Elijah reengages God in conversation.  God for a second time asks, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" And a second time Elijah's explains he is been hunted down. This second exchange is almost exactly identical to the conversation between God and Elijah that had happened before the successive mountaintop storms. However, what I think is the point in all of this, is that Elijah's heart has been reminded of God's power, sovereignty and ultimate control over all other powers that exist in this world.

Before the mountaintop storms, I would imagine Elijah stated his cause out of fear of his life and future. God responds to Elijah's fear by sending Elijah to witness the furious power of three terrifying and destructive forces:  a windstorm (tornado anyone?), an earthquake, and a consuming fire. Yet, each of these destructive forces were subdued by the mere whisper of God. It was God's whisper that silenced the destructive forces surrounding Elijah.

So when Elijah reengaged in a conversation with God, though the conversation was identical to the first, Elijah's heart had now witnessed God's whisper as more powerful than any other destructive force. And when, after this second conversation, God gives Elijah instruction to keep moving forward with his journey, I have to imagine that Elijah's perspective had been altered in a way that allowed him to understand that if God's whisper could silence the destructive trifecta of a windstorm, earthquake, and wildfire, then God must be more powerful than any other threat he was currently facing.

I believe God would like us to alter our way of seeing the world in this same way. As I said before, we regularly are challenged with feeling like we our outmatched, outnumbered, or unfit to "win" the battles we are engaged in. Yet, if we can place our hope, faith, and life, in Elijah's God--the true God of this world that we live in--I believe we can live with a type of certainty that God really is the God we have all hoped for, and that he will be there when we need him.