The Mountain Top Experience

I would describe the spiritual high that is commonly referred to as the ‘mountain top experience’ as a time where you feel extraordinarily close to God and on fire with the Holy Spirit. Oftentimes, it seems that these spiritual peaks are spread apart by much longer periods of ‘valleys’ or spiritual lows – times where you feel far from God or disconnected from the Holy Spirit. In reality God is never more than a prayer away or farther than the Bible is from you reading it. Psalms 23 says that “even when I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no danger for you [LORD] are with me; your rod and your staff – they comfort me” (CSB). The Lord goes with us through mountain high or valley low. If we don’t feel His presence, it’s because we’re not pressing into Him, not because He isn’t there.
Even throughout this trip I’ve experienced the spiritual highs and lows. During training camp, I felt the Holy Spirit moving within and around me. I felt the Lord’s presence in the squad prayer, devotion, and especially during worship. I heard His voice and listened. Then I got to Spain and set out on el Camino. I left the structure and spoon-feeding of God’s word at training camp and took the reins of my time with God into my own hands. I coasted off the high for the first few days of travel, but quickly started to come down and enter a spiritual valley. The squad had daily prayer time and we worshiped as we walked, but if I wanted time with God for myself then I needed to wake up earlier or stay up later. I was exhausted physically from the hiking and spiritually from taking my eyes off of God and His word.
Not much different than back home in North Carolina, is it? God still requires us to pursue Him and make time for Him in our schedules. We can always be too tired, too busy, or too distracted to spend time investing in our relationship with Him. Even on a mission trip while walking through the beauty of creation, His creation, it’s easy to take our eyes off of Him and focus on the things of this world. We enter the valleys not because God draws away from us, but because we take our eyes off of Him. We focus on the things of this world and wonder why we don’t feel him close to us. We let go of His hand and ask why He isn’t guiding us. We put our hope in the things that are seen and don’t understand why we’ve been let down. I’ll say it again: God is always with us, wanting us to look at Him and rejoice in Him. He wants us to constantly seek Him and nurture our relationship with Him. One day, two weeks, three months of abiding in Him is not enough. We must pursue Him each and every day of our lives. He is the mountain top. He’s where we belong. He’s calling earnestly and waiting for you to pick up the Word He’s given you and bow your head in prayer to Him. Will you let Him carry you up the mountain and out of the valley?