Good evening! Or day, or morning, or whatever it might be as you are reading this. Another beautiful day to live, in all the fullness that it offers. I find my fullness in many things, but one of them is the beauty of God and his creation. Now, the beauty of his creation does not limit itself to outdoor nature, but I must say, that my home in Colorado has some of the most beautiful places I can think of.
If you are not familiar with what a "fourteener" is, it's basically just a mountain that is 14,000 feet or higher. Colorado proudly boasts the most of any U.S. state: fifty-four of them, to be precise.
There is this one fourteener near my hometown called Long's Peak, famous for its level of difficulty and fierceness. Some people have even lost their lives trying to make it to the top. But frankly, the challenge of climbing it is a sweet one, and therefore, Long's Peak is one of the most-climbed fourteeners in Colorado. (Of course, for people who climb Everest-type mountains, I'm sure it's "nothing," but I would say it's indisputably an authentic experience in mountain-climbing).
I wonder. What is it about a challenge that sometimes excites us to take it on? Why does difficulty sometimes engage our sense of adventure, so that we cannot just stand back uninvolved, but must dive in, just to see if we can conquer it? And when we do, wow, that's sweet indeed.
I've been thinking lately about something I recently read. Floyd McClung, in his autobiography Living On the Devil's Doorstep, says that sometimes we suffer because we are not making sacrifices. In other words, too much contentment can breed discontentment if sacrifice is not a part of the picture. It makes me think about some of the difficult challenges that might be calling out to me, inviting me to get involved, asking me to come and conquer. What's more, I expect these challenges to involve sacrifice, because otherwise, where's the difficulty? Void of it, the word "challenge" would cease to mean anything.
For me personally, choosing to give up my own dreams in order to follow Christ is not just a challenge, but an adventure, an invitatation to live, an experience of sacrifice that has a sweet end. I expect difficulty, but I also know that it does not come without a conquering. How do I know? Because "We are more than conquerors through Christ, who loved us." (Romans 8:37).
If you are not familiar with what a "fourteener" is, it's basically just a mountain that is 14,000 feet or higher. Colorado proudly boasts the most of any U.S. state: fifty-four of them, to be precise.
There is this one fourteener near my hometown called Long's Peak, famous for its level of difficulty and fierceness. Some people have even lost their lives trying to make it to the top. But frankly, the challenge of climbing it is a sweet one, and therefore, Long's Peak is one of the most-climbed fourteeners in Colorado. (Of course, for people who climb Everest-type mountains, I'm sure it's "nothing," but I would say it's indisputably an authentic experience in mountain-climbing).
I wonder. What is it about a challenge that sometimes excites us to take it on? Why does difficulty sometimes engage our sense of adventure, so that we cannot just stand back uninvolved, but must dive in, just to see if we can conquer it? And when we do, wow, that's sweet indeed.
I've been thinking lately about something I recently read. Floyd McClung, in his autobiography Living On the Devil's Doorstep, says that sometimes we suffer because we are not making sacrifices. In other words, too much contentment can breed discontentment if sacrifice is not a part of the picture. It makes me think about some of the difficult challenges that might be calling out to me, inviting me to get involved, asking me to come and conquer. What's more, I expect these challenges to involve sacrifice, because otherwise, where's the difficulty? Void of it, the word "challenge" would cease to mean anything.
For me personally, choosing to give up my own dreams in order to follow Christ is not just a challenge, but an adventure, an invitatation to live, an experience of sacrifice that has a sweet end. I expect difficulty, but I also know that it does not come without a conquering. How do I know? Because "We are more than conquerors through Christ, who loved us." (Romans 8:37).
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