Mountain

Mountain-top Experience

“For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ.” Hebrews 3:14 NLT

My husband Tom and I received a “mountain-top experience” at Redwood camp meeting. The speakers were inspiring. We were camping with our daughter, son-in-law and grandson and my parents. It was sweet communion reacquainting with friends. We had been blessed both with receiving and giving, for the marriage seminar we presented was well attended each day and we were incredibly blessed to talk, pray and counsel with couples and individuals and we felt God working in our lives.

We had only been back home one day when the enemy tried to take our mountain-top experience away. What followed was a difficult month of ups and downs while our faith in our relationship with God, relationship with each other and in the Biblical concepts of the marriage seminar we presented were all severely tested in the conflict. The enemy planned to get us to do what we had done other times—return to old habits and lose the experience.

Jesus experienced a similar situation. Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us how Jesus went up to the mountain to pray and “became different or transformed” by the time He spent there with His Father. The disciples who were with Him didn’t understand what had happened. It is sad that they could have had the same experience but didn’t—I wonder, would I have been any different? Probably not!

As Jesus came down from the mountain the enemy didn’t give Him a moment’s rest for He was immediately confronted by the demon-possessed boy and His faithless followers. Jesus rebuked the enemy and when the disciples asked why they hadn’t been able to do so He replied “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.” (Mark 9:29 NASB)

Nothing but prayer, what a simple solution! Yet it is only through prayer along with Bible study, perseverance and faith that we have strength to live in the valley. I learned that when you return from a mountain-top experience—camp meeting, women’s retreat or time alone with Jesus—you have to face the realities of the enemy-filled valley of real life that distain and ridicule your beliefs and cause you to doubt your experience. Just expect it.

The way to weather storms of life in the valley is through prayer, absolute faith and trust in God, hiding God’s word and the mountain-top experiences in your heart. Our faith, belief and hope are always tested in the valley because how we respond in real-life situations will show how firmly planted we really are, how strong our faith is and what is in our hearts.

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