Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Come, let us climb

Sunday, December 1, 2019

From Isaiah 2
"Come, let us climb the Lord's mountain, up to the house of the God of Jacob, that HE may instruct us in his ways and WE may walk in his paths."

"Come now, little jellyfish," said the Shepherd. "Do you believe that I can change you into a mountain goat and get you to the top of the precipice?"

"Yes," replied Much-Afraid.

"Will you let me do it?"

Jay and I left the Lama Community and hiked up toward Lobo Peak, three thousand feet the first day. We set our small tent. In this thin air our fire was hard to light. We scrambled eggs, ate nuts and berries, slept.

Fresh in morning mountain air, we started up again, two or three more hours along the edges of the tallest mountain in New Mexico (12,195 feet). Clouds fell down on us. Forty miles away lightning ranged across the valley above Flag Mountain, our nearest neighbor. Huge pines with no ground cover fell off quickly on both sides of our trail, and sky and valley shone through. We ate from an ancient snowbank, intact in mid-July, crusted, red, covered with nettles. The air was thin, and the flowers were very very bright.

Much-Afraid said something she had never been willing to say before. "I don't think I mind so very much if you do change me. Only have your will and way in me, Shepherd. Nothing else matters."

At last grasping the flagstick that marked Lobo's Peak, Jay and I were silent. God did all the talking while we stood quiet among the rocks, at the altar on this particular top of the world. We felt surrounded by earth's full circle of life. God's hand reached down to caress us through the clouds. For some time we sang our alleluias, and sat silently beneath the heaven. Then with a little lunch, after drinking part of our final quart of water and picking some wet wild flowers to keep and dry, we headed down.

Much-Afraid gasped with wonder and delight. As she spoke she saw that her guardian angels Sorrow and Suffering, who had drawn aside while the Shepherd spoke to her, were standing one at either side of the path. She saw a double rainbow, arching the precipice, and where the ends of the rainbow touched the earth, one touched Suffering and the other Sorrow.

At the bottom of Manzanita Canyon we caught a ride to Taos Ski Lodge. We listened to classical music, drank beer and met people from Chicago and Africa. Pleasant enough. But it felt to me like we hit earth with a bang, too hard. I needed ... I still need ... some way to move from earth to heaven and back again.

Much-Afraid knelt down at the foot of the precipice. She built an altar and laid on it her will, her dread and her shrinking. When the fire had fallen she found among the ashes a larger, rougher-looking stone than any of the others, sharp-edged and dark. This she put in her purse and rose to her feet, and waited.

* * *

As do I, Lord. As do I.

Hannah Hurnard, Hinds' Feet on High Places, p. 111-112, 1975.

Devotions Archive

Come, let us climb

Sunday, December 1, 2019