The Mountaintop Experience

Have you seen those ads where a climber reaches the peak of a great precipice and stands with arms outstretched as the camera pans around them? While I don’t harbor a fear of heights, if I were exhausted from climbing to the top of that mountain, I don’t think I would balance precariously on a jagged peak. Just sayin’.

The mountaintop experiences I savor are those I share with God, and I needn’t climb to places of thin oxygen to find Him. Mountaintop experiences can happen anywhere, and have more to do with my heart’s proximity to God’s than with where I am.

These intense feelings of joy and peace saturate my spirit, and I can’t help but smile and sometimes weep at the beauty of the moment. Feeling so connected to my Creator, in oneness of thought and pure joy, is exhilarating and peaceful all at the same time.

But I’ve come to realize I couldn’t enjoy these peak experiences if I hadn’t first walked through the deepest valleys. Because it is through the valleys of pain and sorrow where I met my Savior, or rather where He met me.

There have been times when I’ve been at my lowest, when my spirit was dark and my outlook on life even darker, and I couldn’t find any hope to start my day. It was from this deep valley of darkness that I was saved from my situation and from my own dark thoughts by the only One who could save me.

I cried out to God and He whispered into my darkness that I was not alone. That comfort helped me begin to find my way out of the pit of darkness. In my deepest sorrow, a voice spoke softly to my spirit “I am with you.” This ray of Hope shined like a beacon of Light leading the way out of the darkness. “Follow Me.”

I savor my mountaintop experiences with God, in pure joy and oneness of Spirit. Though these may be ephemeral moments, I treasure them knowing how far I have come to know this joy in my life through my relationship with God. I would not have reached these peaks had I not first walked the valleys. And through them I learned that I never walk alone.

"Even when I walk 

  through the darkest valley,

 I will not be afraid, 

  for you are close beside me."
           Psalm 23:4 (NLT)

Music speaks to my soul, and Mac Powell of Third Day shares my thoughts beautifully through this song, "Mountain of God." Subscribers please enjoy this video by clicking here.