May 20, 2005
Christian believers in Jesus Christ are often referred to as “pilgrims”. Not so much because we necessarily are physically embarking upon a literal journey to a distant land (although we may) but rather because we perceive the transient qualities of this earthly life and see on the horizon ahead of us a home with the Living God. We are, accordingly, “just passing through” this life.
“…People… living by faith when they died… admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them” (from Hebrews 11:13-16 NIV).
In the moment that we are born again, we begin a journey, hand-in-hand with God by His Holy Spirit. It is a journey in which He reveals the power and sufficiency of His hand, the mercy and passion of His heart of love and the holiness of His divine countenance time and time again as we trust our lives to His promises.
Of course, there is not a point on earth when one can ever say, “I’ve achieved spiritual perfection! There is no more growth for me because I’ve reached the top of it all!” On the contrary, “…I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” Philippians 3:12b-14 NIV).
When I was in my late teens, I hiked on several occasions with my two younger brothers. The area in which we most frequently hiked was criss-crossed with trails that wound about a large hill’s face until they reached its zenith. On one occasion, I determined to forgo those “sissy” trails and instead "press on" straight up the steep slope. “It isn’t far,” I reasoned. “No more than a quarter of a mile.” So I climbed for awhile by grabbing one and then another tree limb that would jut out from the ground with its trunk curving until it pointed straight up towards the heavens.
In this way, I was able to go a considerable distance but in the end decided that it might be easier (and straighter) if I climbed up the track of a water fall that had turned into little more than a trickle in the dry weather. Straining and stretching, I was able to go much more efficiently in the direction I wanted though I occasionally thought of abandoning the attempt, especially when my climbing would disturb a slimy orange salamander which would blink at me with as much surprise in its eyes as was in my own. “Ugh!” I’d exclaim and then grind my teeth and distract my line of thinking as the thing would dart over my hand in its daring escape.
When I finally neared the top, the grade dramatically leveled out and I was able to stand up straight on my feet. My brothers were waiting at the top when I turned and looked down the hill I had just climbed.
“Okay, maybe it wasn’t easier but it was more interesting,” I told myself. I faced forwards to take the last few steps to the top… only to have a large flat stone under me shift sharply, throwing me backwards.
I suddenly found myself rolling pell-mell backwards out of control. I tried to yell, but I don’t think it sounded very intelligible. “A-i-e-e-umph!... Umph!... Umph!... Umph!” I would roll steadily for a few yards, drop five or six feet, roll some more and then fall another couple of yards. The slope decreased a great deal but I still could not stop myself. Vaguely aware that I was quickly approaching a sheer plummet of fifteen or so feet, I tried desperately to grab hold of a tree or bush as I went spiraling by, but couldn’t get a grip on anything.
As it became clear to me that I was definitely going off the edge, I prayed, “Lord, please don’t let there be any jagged rocks or sharp sticks down there!” Obviously, I didn’t have time to be terribly eloquent or thorough in my prayer, but that’s one of the wonderful things about prayer: it doesn’t have to impress anybody because the only real audience is God.
I abuptly felt myself launching out into the air and then landing with a crunching sound in a large mound of leaves that had evidently piled up in the grotto shadowed under the lip of rock from which I had just been jettisoned. I lay there for a long moment with the sensation of not having any air in my lungs and not quite remembering how to breathe.
Finally, when sweet air decided to make a return visit into my body, I was able to stiffly crawl out of the leaves. My brothers’ voices floated down to me asking me if I was all right. I still hadn’t collected my senses quite enough to answer them but they were soon with me and could see that I wasn’t really hurt.
In hindsight, the experience taught me several things. First, never get too sure of yourself until you completely reach your goal. Secondly, God can guide a trusting heart safely through a fall so that one may climb once again. Lastly, as we continue to “press onward and upward” in our walk with God, our circumstances will shift suddenly and our lives will seem as if they are rolling out of control. Sometimes this happens right when we feel closest to God.
Instead of becoming angry with God for seeming to “pull the rug out from under our feet”, let us thank Him instead for His ongoing faithfulness that is proven THROUGH hardship and NOT merely by the absence of it. Indeed, when our Father has opened to us His grace and mercy as well as His awesome power, we may find strange and unexpected turnings in our circumstances that will deepen the working of His grace in our lives if we'll allow Him to have His way with us.
“To keep me from becoming conceited because of… surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10 NIV).
(Thom Mollohan has ministered in southern Ohio the past nine and a half years and is the pastor of Pathway Community Church. He and his wife are the parents of four children. He may be reached by email at pastorthom@pathwaygallipolis.com).
