Why We Can’t Stay on Mountaintops Forever
Why We Can’t Stay on Mountaintops Forever
Have you ever had a mountaintop experience?
I’m not asking if you’ve ever climbed to the top of a mountain, in a literal sense. I’m wondering if you’ve ever had a mountaintop experience with God? A spiritual experience that was unlike anything you’d ever experienced before, nor ever have since.
It could have been a place where you sensed God’s presence so near to you that you felt as if you could reach out and touch Him…
A time when you heard God’s voice so clearly that He may as well have been speaking audibly to you…
A fresh glimpse of the glory of God, as He revealed more of Himself to you for the first time…
A moment when your faith became sight—even if only for a moment…
An experience that set your heart ablaze for God, for His Word, for His Church, for His kingdom, for His glory…
Maybe it happened while you were away at youth camp as a teenager…
Or while you were on a mission trip in foreign country...
Or while you were retracing the footsteps of Jesus in the Holy Land…
Or while you were attending a Christian conference…
Or while you were standing atop a literal mountain!
Wherever you were, whatever you were doing—as you were having that mountaintop experience with God, did you think to yourself, “I never want to leave this place”?
If so, you’re not alone. In fact, that’s exactly what the Apostle Peter thought to himself when Jesus led him up a mountain…
A mountaintop experience to top them all
After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and his brother John and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. He was transfigured in front of them, and his face shone like the sun; his clothes became as white as the light. Suddenly, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it’s good for us to be here. If you want, I will set up three shelters here: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased. Listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown and were terrified.
Jesus came up, touched them, and said, “Get up; don’t be afraid.” When they looked up they saw no one except Jesus alone.
As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Don’t tell anyone about the vision until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.”
- Matthew 17:1-9 (CSB)
Can you even imagine what it must have been like, to have been Peter or James or John in that moment—to have had this mountaintop experience with God?
Surely their minds were blown, and they must have felt all the feelings!
They’d believed that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, the Son of God (Matthew 16:13-20). Now, they were seeing Jesus in all of His glory—proof of what they’d already accepted by faith!
Peter was right. It was good for them to be there!
And like any one of us, Peter’s inclination was to stay. To set up camp. After all, why wouldn’t you stay in a place like that, where—for the moment at least—everything is exactly as it should be?
But that’s the thing about mountaintop experiences, this side of eternity. They’re momentary. They’re not meant to last forever. In fact, they can’t.
Why?
Because mountaintop experiences are only glorious when Jesus—the glorious One—is there with us; and Jesus doesn’t stay on mountaintops, even if we choose to.
I know what you’re thinking. Jesus is always with us, right? So if we’re there, He’s got to be there too, doesn’t He?
What I’m trying to communicate is this: We can’t follow Jesus down the mountainside, into the valleys below, and simultaneously pitch our tent upon the mountaintop. And if we want to walk with Jesus and be a part of what He’s doing, we have to go where He’s leading—not the other way around.
The perils of pitching tents on mountaintops
Several years back, I took a trip to the mountains with some friends. We didn’t climb to any mountaintops, but we did experience breathtaking mountain views! And while we were there, we heard someone preaching the good news of Jesus.
Afterward, an invitation was given for anyone who had put their faith in Jesus to be baptized right then and there—mountain views and all!
Caught up in the moment, my friend made a profession of faith and was baptized.
She had a mountaintop experience, and I would argue, she likely did see Jesus for who He really was in that moment. The problem was, she never followed Him down the mountain afterward. She didn’t want to. She wanted to stay there with the mind-blowing view, and all the feelings it evoked!
But if we don’t follow Jesus down the mountain when He begins to descend, what was once a breathtakingly glorious experience will eventually transform into all that it ever can be without Him: dangerously thin air and an uninhabitable pile of rocks.
My friend may have had a mountaintop experience, but her faith never took root, because faith that doesn’t follow isn’t really faith at all.
Similarly, I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with Christians over the years who’d recently attended a conference or a concert where they’d had a mountaintop experience that strengthened their faith and stirred up their passion for Jesus. While “on the mountaintop,” they experienced something good, much like Peter did, and they’d mistakenly surmised that mountaintop living was how things were going to be from that point forward—how things were always supposed to have been.
Surely, feeling close to God, and having monumental, almost ethereal encounters with Him was supposed to be a regular occurrence for any sincere, mature Christ follower. So, if they hadn’t felt close to God before, or had never experienced anything more than an “average” day as a Christian, they simply weren’t as far along in their faith walk as they should have been before.
Then, the conference or concert ended, and the mountaintop (and all the feelings that came with it) disappeared.
“God just felt so real to me the whole time I was at the Forrest Frank concert! I’ve never been more sure of His love for me, or that I’m doing what He’s called me to do. But ever since I got back home, and back to my day-to-day routine—I don’t know. It’s like I can’t feel God’s presence anymore, and I’m starting to wonder if I never heard Him right in the first place. It’s not supposed to feel like this, is it? If God feels distant, I must not be in His will. Maybe I’m not even a real Christian…”
That specific scenario is made up, but it’s not far off from some of the things I’ve heard over the years.
When our mountaintop experiences happen outside of the monotonous and the mundane, once we return to the daily grind, we can find it hard to remember what (or Who) it was exactly that made our time on the mountaintop so glorious.
Or perhaps its that we recognized, while there, that God is too glorious for our daily lives—too big to fit into our mundane monotony.
But if we think that the monotonous and the mundane are beneath God, that’s because they are. God is always doing something new, or in a new way, and there’s nothing ordinary about Him.
That being said, the same God who rarely does anything the same way twice, and who is extraordinary beyond our comprehension, deigned to step down into our lowly world so that He could walk with us in the monotonous and the mundane that we more commonly refer to as our day-to-day lives.
Seeing value in the valleys
The spiritual mountaintops are not special places we go to or certain activities we participate in so that we can draw close to God and experience His presence.
Spiritual mountaintops are the moments in our lives when our eyes become open to see the God who is ever with us more clearly than we ever have before; and so, such mountaintop experiences can happen anywhere—on the highest mountain peaks or in the lowest of low valleys, during the incredibly monumental or the entirely mundane.
And here’s an interesting thing to consider: While we often think of spiritual “valleys” as dark, painful places of loss, or the lowest points in our lives, they’re more likely simply the places where we spend most of our time, or live out our day-to-day lives.
Valleys are where ministry happens—kingdom work that we get to be a part of.
Valleys are where loving one another occurs.
Valleys are where we toil and grow and become more like Jesus, day-by-day.
Valleys are where faith flourishes. Because mountaintops may be where we see firsthand what we’ve only believed to be true before, but valleys are where that belief was forged to begin with.
It’s interesting that the passage we read above begins by stating that Jesus led Peter, James, and John up the mountain (Matthew 17:1). So when they came back down at the end of that same passage, the implication is that Jesus was still leading them, and they were still following His lead (Matthew 17:7-9).
Jesus led them up the mountain for a reason, and likewise, when He brought them back down the mountainside, it was with purpose. And so it will always be, in each of our lives.
If Jesus brings you to a mountaintop: Enjoy it! Drink it all in! But also, pay attention, because He’s likely preparing you for something in the future. He’s giving you greater revelation of Himself, so that you can know Him more fully and be ready to go with Him wherever He leads you next.
So when Jesus leads you into the valley once more, don’t lose heart! Don’t forget what God showed you on that mountaintop.
The glorious feelings might fade, but the glorious One will still be with you. It’s true that Jesus revealed Himself on mountaintops (Matthew 17:1-6), yet it’s helpful to remember that He also revealed Himself in the valley of the shadow of death (Mark 15:39).
The fullness of God’s presence is experienced wherever He’s at work. And when His work is taking place somewhere other than the mountaintop, we may still experience something while we’re camped out up in the clouds; but it won’t be Him…
I’d rather experience Him, wouldn’t you?
There’s so much work left to be done here in the valleys, both in us and through us, as we journey through the monotonous and the mundane, following close behind a glorious God who deigns to dwell with us.
So, let’s go with God!
“Mountaintops are for views and inspiration, but fruit is grown in the valleys.” - Billy Graham
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