WHAT DO WE CARRY DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN ?
This morning when I was reading Oswald Chambers, 'My Utmost for his Highest', I actually stopped for a while. Something in me didn't completely agree...
He writes about our tendency to think that everything that happens in our lives has to be turned into some kind of useful teaching. But perhaps, he says, God is doing something much deeper than simply teaching us something. He is making us something.
I understand what he means.
There are experiences in life that don't immediately make sense. There are seasons where we don't come out with a neat little lesson. We simply come out different.
Something in us has changed. Our faith has deepened. We have become more patient, more compassionate, more dependent on God. Perhaps we understand His grace a little differently than we did before.
And yet, as I read those words, I found myself thinking:
Is that all the experience is for?
I don't think so.
I believe that every experience God allows us to walk through, whether it is a mountain or a valley, can eventually become something that we share with others.
Not necessarily as a lesson.
But as a testimony.
What God does in us can become something He does through us
I don't want to reduce an experience to “What did I learn from this?”
But I also don't want to keep it entirely to myself.
If God has taken me through something, if He has met me there, if I have seen His hand in that place then why wouldn't I share that?
Not to tell someone what they should learn.
Not because I understand God's reasons for everything.
But simply to say:
“This is what I saw God do.”
Sometimes we are so busy looking for the lesson that we miss the testimony.
Maybe the testimony is simply:
God was faithful.
God gave me strength.
God comforted me.
God opened a door.
God carried me when I couldn't carry myself.
Maybe I don't understand why the mountain had to happen. Maybe I don't understand why the valley had to be so long.
But I know that God was there.
And that is worth sharing.
The mountain isn't only for the person standing on it
Majestic Mountains painted by Shweta Kanhai on pinewood blocks
We often speak about mountaintop experiences as those beautiful moments when we feel close to God or when prayers are answered, something becomes clear, or we experience His goodness in a very tangible way.
But what happens when we come down?
Perhaps we carry something with us.
A deeper faith.
A greater gratitude.
A new understanding of grace.
And somewhere along the road, we may meet someone standing in a place we once stood.
Then our mountaintop becomes their encouragement.
Not because we have all the answers.
But because we can say:
I have seen God's faithfulness before. I know He can meet you here too.
And the valley has a testimony of its own.
In the valley, we discover that God doesn't disappear simply because we cannot see the way forward.
We learn to wait.
To trust.
To keep praying.
And one day, someone else may find themselves in that same valley.
Our story may not remove their valley, but it may help them believe they are not alone in it.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1:4 that God comforts us in our troubles so that we can comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received from Him.
That makes me think that perhaps our experiences are never meant to stop with us.
Maybe the question is not only, “What did this teach me?”
Perhaps there is another question:
What did I see of God here?
Because I may not always know the lesson.
I may not understand the reason.
I may never know why something happened the way it did.
But I can remember how God met me in it.
And that is something I can carry.
Something I can share.
Something that may one day become hope for somebody else.
So perhaps Chambers is right.
Maybe the mountain is not primarily meant to teach us something.
Maybe it is meant to make us something.
But I believe that what God makes in us can eventually become a testimony through us.
The mountain changes us.
The valley deepens us.
And the story God writes in both places may become a small window through which someone else catches a glimpse of Him.
And perhaps that is more than a lesson.
It is a witness.
Reference:
OSWALD CHAMBER'S TODAY'S DEVOTIONAL
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