Climbing the Mountain

When listening to music I have a sense of flight and happiness, but afterwards I’m left with a diminished feeling.  When I stare at mountains, I feel a freedom and power in life that is greater than what I see.  And I feel it when I see my wife’s eyes sparkle with joy, but it is sadly lost in the reality of everyday life.

Even though my life is a joyful disappointment, and even though the joy does last longer than the disappointment, I can’t get away from the thought that there must be something greater that is reflected in the music or in the awe-inspiring landscape.

As I’ve stood looking up at the mountains, I felt that if only I could climb to its highest peak I would uncover the secret of it splendor, but once I reach its heights, I realize the secret was never there.

Possibly, when God breathed life into us, He also breathed into us a song or a scene.  Our breaths rarely remind us of God, but play a certain song or view a beautiful landscape and all of a sudden there is a memory of something yearned for, yet lost.  Our soul is awakened to a memory of who we were made to be.

When my wife and I first accepted God’s call into the ministry we told Him “We are willing to go anywhere and do anything He wanted us to do.”  But we both had to experience a period of brokenness.  Were we really ready for “anywhere?”  Going down the road of “learning” the lessons God needed to teach us, we began to see the lack of distinction between sharing the message and serving the people.

The desire for adventure eventually drove us to the other side of the world.  We couldn’t come to terms with the number of churches we would drive past in one small town contrasted with the number of believers in 500 villages in South Asia—none.  We wanted to live lives of devotion to God wherever we were, but where was the greatest need?

Clearly, the answer was—elsewhere.

It’s now almost the end of 2019, and I’m 70 years old.  Twenty-three years brings many changes to the starry-eyed mountain called missions.  I’ve realized I’m not the only one who is ascending it.  I climb it in community with others around the world.  The climb is harder and maybe a bit less beautiful than when I was younger.

Sometimes we wish we could just go back to the foothills and stare up at it once again. Yet there is something about the summit that keeps us going.  We want to see the view from the top that Matthew described in the Bible when he said, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:14) 

Congratulations!

Feedspot has rated our Vanguard Ministries International blog #11 out of their 15 best mission blogs. We at VMI feel blessed and honored to be listed.

According to Feedspot their ranking is based on relevancy, blog post frequency (freshness), social metrics, domain authority, traffic and many other parameters. They routinely remove inactive blogs and those which are no longer relevant to a given list. List is updated as they receive new blog submissions and re-ranked every few weeks.

Thank you Feedspot for your recognition. Be sure to check the Feedspot website for your marketing solutions..