What Are We Reaching Toward?
Remembering how we reached the mountain
God’s Word has come to us across millennia.
Generations have lived and died. Languages have changed. Nations have risen and fallen. Yet we can still open the Scriptures and read the account of God speaking creation into existence.
I see His care in that preservation.
The creation story is there for everyone. A person with little knowledge of the world can begin considering what it means to obey God. The person preparing to pilot a rocket toward Mars can encounter the same extraordinary declaration:
God spoke, and everything came to be. (Genesis 1:1–3)
Think about the power of the One we are considering.
Our greatest accomplishments take place within a creation we did not make. Whatever we discover, whatever we build, whatever distance we travel, we are working with what He has already brought into existence.
So what are we reaching toward?
Greater accomplishments for mankind? Another discovery? Another height from which we can look back upon what we have achieved?
And where is God in our reaching?
Some dismiss the Scriptures almost immediately. Others receive them with the utmost reverence. Then there are people somewhere in the middle, uncertain what to do with this account of a Being whose power exceeds anything they can comprehend.
I want to invite that person to consider something.
What if the next step begins with humbly approaching Him?
James tells us that God gives grace to the humble and invites us to draw near to Him. (James 4:6–10)
That brings Elijah to my mind.
At Mount Carmel, Elijah stood before the people and called upon the Lord. God answered with fire. The people fell upon their faces and acknowledged Him as God. (1 Kings 18:36–39)
What an extraordinary moment.
Elijah had witnessed something that human effort could never have produced. He had prayed, and God had answered before them all.
Then came a threat from Jezebel.
And Elijah ran.
He went into the wilderness, sat beneath a tree, and reached such despair that he asked to die. (1 Kings 19:1–4)
When I consider that movement from Carmel into the wilderness, I see a man turning the wrong way. After standing before such a demonstration of God’s power, he fled before a threat against his life.
That makes me stop and examine myself.
I can be at the top of the mountain and still need to remember how I arrived there.
Elijah had not supplied the fire.
The power had belonged to God all along.
Whatever heights we reach in our walk with Him, we still approach the same King. We still depend upon His grace. We still need the humility with which we first turned toward Him.
Perhaps the mountaintop makes that easy to forget.
Something wonderful happens. We see an answer to prayer. We participate in something far beyond our own ability. Then the next difficulty arrives, and our attention becomes occupied with what we might lose.
Have we remembered the One who brought us this far?
God met Elijah in his exhaustion. He provided food and rest. Later, at Horeb, He spoke with him and gave him further direction. Elijah still had work before him. (1 Kings 19:5–18)
His frightened flight was not the end of their relationship.
And in time, this same Elijah was taken up into heaven in a whirlwind. (2 Kings 2:11)
Go figure.
The man who had seen fire fall, who had run in fear, and whom God had met along the way was still held within God’s purpose.
There is something here I want to carry with me.
I want to remember the humble approach to the King.
When I am uncertain, I need Him. When I am afraid, I need Him. When I stand upon a mountain after seeing something extraordinary, I need Him there, too.
Our accomplishments cannot place us beyond that dependence.
We can send a rocket toward another world and still bow before the One who made it. We can grow in knowledge and still come with questions. We can witness His power and still need Him to direct our next step.
So what am I reaching toward?
I want to know Him. I want to walk with Him. I want whatever He allows me to accomplish to remain within that relationship.
And when He brings me to the top of a mountain, I want to remember:
I came before the King humbly. That is how I want to remain.