When scaling the wrong mountain turns out to be the right mountain..

Its an incredible feeling when one finally reaches the top of a mountain you have long sought to scale. What’s even more incredible is when you reach the top, look over your shoulder across the horizon and see the mountain you thought your were climbing.

Yet, as you look down to survey that which you just conquered, it is then that you realize that this was the right mountain all along.

How did that happen? How could I be so wrong about something so right?

In the book Hustling God, it discusses how we chase all along that which has already been given us. And like this mountain I have been scaling, that which I was seeking, was that which was beneath my feet all along.

I reached a mountaintop today. Frankly, I think I may have reached it a week ago, but until the clouds parted, I had no way of knowing if there was more to scale or not. But something felt like we had arrived.

Today I have come to a place of new understanding in my life. I have come to a place of realization that I am capable, I am a good man, and I am loved.

I no longer need to prove myself, I don’t need to seek out approval for lack of self esteem, and I don’t need to succumb to a fear of abandonment that has long effected my life.

Instead, what I must do is to simply stand in awe of God’s yes.

It’s been here all along. I just never could hear it through the loud and nonstop voices of the committee that sat within the board room inside my head. (Certainly I am a work in progress and may have setbacks from time to time. But now… now I know better. Now I know what YES sounds like.)

Too often, we go through all of the don’t checklist items to hopefully find our way to the yes. But that’s not how God works. He doesn’t start with waiting for you to somehow prove your worth with seeking to perfect your life before He acts. He simply meets you where you’re at (and by the way, wherever you’re at) with a yes because He has already met you where you’re at. You just haven’t realized it yet. (At least I hadn’t.)

Romans 5 says it well..

“Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.” – The Message

I love that. How can you not stand in awe of that? It took me years to even scratch the service of this. Yet here I stand, scratching the surface atop this mountain of new understanding.

Today I am grateful for the view. Tomorrow, my reality is this..

..Until the roll is called up yonder, there will always be more mountains to climb. But perhaps now when I climb, I’ll know that with God, I can scale any mountain… even if its the “wrong” one.