Another Part of the Mountain

This is the question that’s plagued me: How do we stay unified if we see things so differently?

I don’t mean clear scriptural things: Jesus is the Son of God, the Bible is the inspired Word of God, etc. And I don’t mean clearly non-scriptural things: Homeschool or public school. I mean any host of those in-between things. Let’s just say something like … divine healing. Let’s just pretend for a moment that I’m on a journey of learning what God’s Word says about divine healing. Then, let’s say you are on a journey about embracing suffering. God is convicting and challenging you and drawing your attention to all the places in scripture where believers are clearly called to suffer.

And then let’s say, we find ourselves at odds because your biblical spiritual journey looks so very different from my biblical spiritual journey.

Can we journey together at all? 

Are we doomed to division? 

This nagged me as I drove that windy bit of freeway along the Columbia River Gorge. It was gorgeous, bright blue sky and sun shining, the water like sparkling glass along the road. I was headed to speak at a lovely little church about my favorite topic–I should have been joyful. But I was anxious, about this.

Can we journey together at all?

Are we doomed to division? Not necessarily you and me, but all of us. How do we all travel together when our journeys look so very different?

And so I prayed, and poured this out to the Father. All along that freeway, more than an hour passing by, until I turned to cross the vast drawbridge headed north.

And that drawbridge took me all the way into Washington and plopped me right down into the answer to my question.

It almost took my breath away, looking back now over the wide Columbia river. I was now driving along the other side, where I had never driven before, from the north looking south.

And there is was: Mount Hood. So incredibly vast, as always but … Oh! 

I had never seen it before.

I had never seen THIS Mount Hood before. I had never, truly never, seen Mount Hood from exactly this perspective before.

It was so different.

I have lived in Clackamas County almost my whole life. I have had several houses with a view of Mount Hood.

But it’s always basically the same view.

It’s a wide mountain, with gradual slope upward. I know Mount Hood. Or so I thought.

I knew my view of Mount Hood.

This view was a different mountain entirely. Sharp, pointy on the top, narrower.

But it was still Mount Hood.

And tears filled my eyes as the answer came so clearly.

Of course. Why  hadn’t I seen it before?

Of course the mountain doesn’t change. Hasn’t. Won’t. What changes?

Our perspective. We travel to new places. We have to go a long way to see it from the other side, but it will take our breath away when we do.

My new view didn’t make my “old” view invalid. I am back home now and as I look toward my beloved mountain it is still wide with a gradual slope.

But now I know about the other side. I know God is the healer and we are called to suffer. I know there is a jagged pointy top to Mount Hood, if you go around toward the north and look from there. And chances are, if you in eastern Oregon, or somewhere farther south, that you know another view entirely:

One I’ve never seen.

And while we are not free to make up our own view, willy-nilly painting pictures of pretend mountains we made up in our mind, we ARE free to continue gazing up at the beauty of that majestic unchanging mountain as revealed in the Scriptures and keep getting new glimpses of its infinitely glorious facets.

We weren’t meant to dissect the mountain. We were meant to look up in awe and worship the Creator and be reminded of our smallness and His bigness. Your journey may be on an entirely different side of the mountain, but I’d love to hear about your journey. I’d love to learn about it. And, if you’d be so gracious, I’d love to share with you a bit about mine too.

Let’s never stop discovering new glorious facets of the infinite greatness of our God.

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! (Rom. 11:33)

Amen! We can certainly agree on that.

{Grateful for you, and for all our various journeys up the Mountain of God. Thanks for reading.}