On Top of the World! (Almost...)
[posted June 19, 2007 • 8:21PM • Bill Gibson]

It was last week when I found myself sitting on top of the world... Well, almost. I was at one of my favorite places — the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Perched on a rock at 6643 feet, I was enjoying the view from atop Clingman's Dome, the highest peak in the Great Smoky Mountains. Visibility was wonderful and I could see for miles and miles. Blue skies, green mountain peaks, clouds moving by, and a slight chilly wind. Man, it was awesome.

I was just trying to chill (not from the wind...) and connect with God through the beauty of creation. I very much have a deep love and kinship with the Smokies. Throughout my life I have been there over and over again. I have fished, hiked, camped, and "chilled" in these mountains. I consider them to be "holy" ground. It's like I feel so close to God in the mountains. It's an amazing thing.

Looking out over the landscape, I realized how much it was changing. Not the physical landscape before me but the landscape of my own journey. God has been moving and working in circumstances and events in ways that I have not expected. I continue to be blown away. And sitting on top of Clingman's Dome was a reminder of just how powerful God really is.

During my reflection time on top of the Smokies, I remembered that just the Saturday before I found myself even higher. I was 41 feet higher, to be exact, on the top of Mount Mitchell, the highest peak of the Black Mountains, at 6684 feet (the highest peak in the Eastern United States). I was leading a hike with a group of folks from the top of Mount Mitchell down to Black Mountain Campground (about 6 miles).

Many of the youth who were on the hike with us had never stepped foot into the backcountry, much less been on top of the world (at least in the Eastern US!). We took a manageable pace of about 4 hours to get to camp. Sometimes, hiking slow downhill can actually be more difficult than hiking up the mountain. I'm serious.

Sometimes we think that when we are almost done or we are on the downhill side of something, it is easier and we don't have to put forth as much effort. But the truth is, that the journey we have been through has taken a toll on us, even when we don't realize it. We can start to hurt in places we didn't know we could hurt.

I got to thinking about this... The truth is, all of us are always on the other side of something. We are always coming out of an experience, or through a trial, or navigating an obstacle, or completing a task. And whether we realize it or not, we are always learning how to do things better — even subconsciously. Allow me to illustrate... If we are hiking down a trail and we step on a big rock that gives way and causes us to tumble down the mountain, I dare say that the next time we will be a little more careful on the placement of our next step. Survival is something that is wired into our behavior. We learn how to endure.

So if we are always on the other side of something, then we have the ability to look back over our experiences — our journey — and learn. We can learn to make better choices, or improve how we do things, or try something for the first time, or just take time to enjoy the scenery... You get the idea.

Sometimes when we are down in the valley — in the deep, dark, insect infested natural obstacle course called life — we forget where we have been. We forget the experience of when we were on top of the mountain, standing in awe.

Jesus understood this. We tend to forget. The Bible tells us over and over how Jesus retreated in prayer. He took time to reflect and be in conversation with life itself — Creator to created.

Standing on top of the world can remind us of just how awesome God really is. And when we descend into the depths of the valley, we have the benefit of what we experience on our walk with God. We are always on the other side of something. That "something" part of the journey is what God can use in your life to reach someone else who is lost in the deep darkness of the valley.

Our challenge is to keep striving, and to remember what the view looks like from God's vantage...