Sliding Down a Slippery Slope or Climbing Up The Mountain

     It’s been a long difficult week.  Bet many of you can identify.  Truth be told, I questioned God’s thinking, even with His help, Philippians 4:13 was going to win out.   (“I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.”  Philippians 4:13 NIV).    As always, it did.   However, it took another walk around my backyard lake to decipher directional guidance.

     While revolving around God’s creation for the umpteenth time, I was in a whirlwind of uncertainty.   Kept asking the questions: “OK, Lord, so what now?   Ignore, fight or give up – I sure don’t know what’s right.   I need you to point me where you want me.  What way are you ‘WILL’ing me to go?”   Suddenly, I perceived His answer: “Are you sliding down a slippery slope or climbing up the mountain???”   Ouch, I was convicted!

     I’d been questioning how to get around the problem, when the answer needed was examination of my vertical direction.   Life’s journey is not a horizontal course around this world, ultimately reaching earthly paradise.   It is a vertical ascent up the mountains of life to the highest eternity with God in heaven.   Simply stated, the way to heaven is by climbing up, not slipping down.  

     When life’s mountains confront us, so easily we despair.   With the devil, gladly greasing our sweaty palms, we begin sliding down a slippery slope.   With each downward spill, closer and closer we edge into Satan’s snare; and eventually we are in a free fall, skidding toward the pit of hell itself.

     Jesus Christ, to save you and me from our sins, faced the hardest earthly mountain of all – crucifixion.   (Sort of makes my difficult week look like a garden stroll through the blooming daffodils.    How about yours?)   Talk about a symbolic message.   Christ had to carry His cross (yours and my sins) “UP” “MOUNT” Calvary to win victory over the tribulation facing Him.  

     So what about us and our trials – microscopically minuscule compared to Jesus’s.   Do we see them as unfair crosses pulling us down, our lives plummeting into an uncontrollable descent?   Or do we look up with weary eyes, yet loving hearts filled with trust in God, and understand (like Christ our Brother) life’s journey is filled with mountainous trials; but through Christ’s strength, our hope filled souls can climb each and every one?

       Are you sliding down a slippery slope or climbing up the mountain?   Can’t do both.   Remember, God decrees; but you decide.