It's a pretty sweet experience.
In China, I plateau-ed. My 3rd week found me and my "mini-team" (half of "mega-team") in a tiny town along the yellow river. The valley that holds this town is home to about 7 people groups of which were unreached. Now there's not much language cross over as I alluded to in a previous blog, so that left us doing a lot of prayer walking.
I'll keep this one short...
On the first day of our prayer walks, I found myself walking off alone and toward mountains in the distance. I was already on top of a plateau, pretty significantly elevated above most of the areas below. I had a great view all around me. But I wasn't completely satisfied with that. I wanted to move on to the top of the highest mountain I could get to, but I just felt like I should stop.
So I did, and I had a little time with God, then I turned around to come back, but I was led a different way back. I felt this strange feeling to go down, off the beaten path into a ravine between to plateaus and on out that way. It didn't make sense, but some things came to me in those moments.
1. There was more to be done. There were higher points to reach. There was more "work" to be done, but sometimes God calls us to be satisfied where we are, not because there's not more, but because He is the one who brought us where we are. Being brought to Him is more important than any mountain top.
2. Though I didn't feel led to go on higher up that day. There is no pride to be found atop the plateaus of life, yes we may have come a long way, either physically, emotionally, spiritually, or some combination of all three, but there is still more that can be accomplished. Don't rest on what has been done, there is more out there to be sought, and if God calls you higher, don't rest in where you've been.
3. Even in getting to the plateaus of life, there is no room for pride. For example, I never would have reached that plateau without a number of factors including, but not limited to, the health God gave me, the financial support of people to bring me to China, the spiritual support to bring me to a place where I would go on this crazy journey, the placement in this specific location, and, let's not forget, the fact that there was a place created to climb. All of our accomplishments and heights that we tend to find much pride in are so dependent on many things beyond our "will power" and "ability."
4. I needed no convincing to want to go higher, to want to achieve more. I was all for seeking the high place, and needed some convincing to not go on, but when I started feeling an itch to go down deep into the ravine I wasn't so eager. Sometimes God plans to take us high, and sometimes we are to be brought low. We need to learn to do as it says in Philippians 4:11-13. (look it up). Sometimes God doesn't wanna take us to the peak, because it might be in the valley or ravine that we are brought closest to Him, which is our ultimate good.
5. What God leads in life won't always make sense. Suck it up. We shouldn't have have a pride so powerful that everything you do has to make sense. We should have more of a keen interest in trusting Him than ourselves and guarding our pride.
So what?
Well, I'm sure there's more, but here's a start...
Don't always seek the mountain top experiences as a sign of holiness, sometimes the holy ground is on the plateau top... or bottom….
