Around the SAME Mountain

Ever find yourself going around that same mountain again? It’s so frustrating! I hate that dang mountain!! I find myself back, circling this mountain of inadequacy! Around this mountain I compare myself and always fall short. Around this mountain I feel less than. Around this mountain I doubt myself and my purpose. Around this mountain I feel small and insignificant. Around this mountain I stumble…   I find myself here again… but I don’t feel so conquered by it this time. Maybe I have a different vantage point this go round? I can see the struggles the last few days, the lens of inadequacy coloring my world. I remember the conversations, I see the feelings overtake my logical thinking. It's different this go round – BECAUSE I SEE IT! It is clear this go round, not elusive and hidden like the travels before.   It’s all so clear – that moment when that comment grabbed me full of insecurity, the instant that look took hold of comparison, that minute that conversation shifted to self-defeating doubt…

I see it –

no longer hidden under inarticulate emotion,

hidden stirring that I can’t make sense of, it is clear –  

so I turn in...

I will not take the same steps as before,

I will conquer this mountain and

I will declare it from this mountaintop!

  You see, this is what I believe about my “around the same mountain” experiences-- I do not believe it is evidence of my failure, I do not believe it is punishment because the lesson was not learned, I do not believe it is meant to be negative, so even though I don’t like going around the same mountain and wish I could move on already – I do believe it is in God’s amazing grace that He ALLOWS it!  

I am not back there because of my failure,

I am back there because He is mercifully gracious!

You see, my “around the same mountain” experiences hold within them a gift – a lesson learned that cannot be learned any other way – and God in His mercy ALLOWS me to go back around the mountain because on my 2 ^nd, 12 ^th, 53 ^rd time around, just maybe I will get get it this time! And so He lets me traverse the mountain a 54 ^th time because He really wants me to have the gift He has for me on the other side of the mountain.

He will ALLOW me to circle about because that gift – He is excited about that gift! And so, I imagine Him like an encouraging Father cheering me around again in anticipation of His good, good gifts!  He can not wait for me to move that mountain!

(She believed she could, so she did)

Zechariah 4:5-7 

The Messenger-Angel said, “Can’t you tell?” “No, sir,” I said. Then he said, “This is God’s Message to Zerubbabel: ‘You can’t force these things. They only come about through my Spirit,’ says God-of-the-Angel-Armies. ‘So, big mountain, who do you think you are? Next to Zerubbabel you’re nothing but a molehill. He’ll proceed to set the Cornerstone in place, accompanied by cheers: Yes! Yes! Do it!’”