Mountainous Terrain

This week I invite us to embark on an Advent journey together – one that will take us up high mountains and through seemingly dying forests; through deserts blooming with life and through places we can only imagine as heavenly splendor or hellacious frights. Until finally, we find ourselves again on the holiest of holy and silent nights, as we come again to humble Bethlehem where our Advent travels end and the greatest story ever told begins.

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves and jump to the end just yet…

Let’s first begin this Advent journey with a hike through mountainous terrain - where the views are spectacular! More so, the potential for a life lived on this mountain is the stuff that dreams are made of. Days of endless peace between all nations and peoples; days filled with knowing with certainty God’s will – and then actually living it. It’s a wonderful vision of both what is and will be.

Sadly, though, the “what is” is often hard to see. The news of the day weighs heavy on us and often gets in the way of our seeing just how glorious this mountain-top life can really be. “What is” is often fraught with worry and illness, with brokenness and sinfulness. When the reality of the “what is” is all we see we can be brought to our knees and lose hope in the “what will be.” Here is where it is all the more important to be dressed rightly for this mountain hike. As Paul says in Romans – we must “put on the Lord, Jesus Christ” – our light in the darkness of “what is” and our hope for the “what will be” future that is His to give.

What is your hope for this Advent season? For what in your life now do you need Jesus to help you see what can and will be with hope in His coming? Think about it. Pray about it. Read God’s word, and then, in the first light of Advent, let us hike this mountain together with great hope in the promise of Christmas to come.