Take a Hike

Tyler Thornton

You don’t have to look very far to find beautiful mountains here in the PNW. On every clear day when Reiner appears in the distance it takes my breath away! It wasn’t until I moved to Washington that I hiked my first mountain, and no it wasn’t Mount Rainier… It went about how you would imagine it going. I started full of energy and optimism thinking “this will be a breeze”, followed quickly by my heavy breathing, despair and a potential leg cramp. It can be hard to keep perspective of the journey or even imagine the end goal when you are staring straight down ahead of you putting one foot in front of the other. At a certain point I stopped taking in the beauty of my surroundings and traded it for the narrow perspective of the gravel path we treaded. 

Have you ever found yourself there? No longer staring at the breathtaking beauty around you, but instead head down, trying not to fall, avoiding the cramp in your left calf you know is inevitably coming. Your experience will reflect your line of sight. What are you staring at?

Psalm 121 says, “I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”

Something remarkable happens when you reach the top of a mountain. Your pain fades, you finally catch your breath, those trees that you passed that seemed like skyscrapers now look like a pinhead from where you stand. I don’t think it is a coincidence that mountains are constant geographical fixtures in some of God’s greatest stories in the Bible. We know God is with us in the valleys as well as on the mountains, but even in the midst of life’s lowest moments it is important to be reminded where our hope comes from. 

Allow God to show you his point of view this week. Ask God to show you the things in your surroundings that you may have been missing due to a narrow perspective. Take a hike.