Living in the Aftermath of a Mountain Top Experience
In my last post, I summarized my experience at the TGC23 Conference, which I consider a Mountain Top Experience in my life.
But what is a “mountain top experience”? How does a person go back to “normal life” after such an extraordinary adventure or spiritual encounter? Should we exhaust ourselves searching for the next spiritual high, wishing never to dip a toe into any crevice resembling a valley? Are we meant to be content with a constant rollercoaster of extreme highs and devastating lows?
These are questions I’ve asked myself ever since my first true Mountain Top Experience in Kenya in 2019 –– questions that I also reflected on after a rough first few days adjusting to “normal life” after TGC23.
What is a Mountain Top Experience?
I define a Mountain Top Experience as a transformative moment or stretch of time spent in the presence of God. Or, in another way, it’s a major high point in a person’s life where they experience clarity, insight, or profound joy from a spiritual encounter with Yahweh.
It’s not necessarily about reaching the peak of Everest or Kilimanjaro. It’s about being at the top and marveling at the one who created the mountain. It’s looking out, over the edge, and catching a glimpse of the Promised Land, a glimpse of Heaven.
My first significant Mountain Top Experience was the three-month, short-term mission trip I spent in Kenya during the summer of 2019. That was the summer I finally decided to seriously commit to my faith –– no more having one foot in the church and the other in the pit of my own vices and self-destruction. God used my time in Kenya to stretch me beyond the limits of my comfort zone and taught me lessons I didn’t anticipate.
The biggest lesson I learned that summer was resting in God’s presence while waiting for him to speak –– discerning his voice apart from my own inner thoughts, desires, and emotions. I found peace in God’s plan being greater than my dreams for my life.
Do We Have to Leave the Mountain Top?
“Now what?”
I asked this question a lot when I returned from Kenya in 2019.
If you’ve ever attended a youth conference or summer camp, you may have experienced this too. Or maybe it was a concert where you stood in the front row by the barricades for your favorite band. Perhaps you felt it after the most wonderful first date with the person you’re confident you’ll marry one day.
It seems undesirable to leave such an incredible, life-changing experience.
Forget the valley. When can I get to the next Mountain Top? I don’t want to go back to “real life.”
It’s no coincidence that the verse of the day, after my return from my recent visit to the TGC23 conference, was Philippians 4:9.
“Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me – put it into practice. And the God of Peace will be with you.”
What if, instead of chasing the “next high” like a spiritual addict, we consider how to practice the lessons from the Mountain Top –– no matter what spiritual altitude we find ourselves at? Growth and maturity come from internalizing what you learned rather than having to be re-taught the lesson over and over. There’s peace in not having to repeat lessons or finding ourselves asking, “God, why does this keep happening to me?”
Let’s also consider the possibility that sometimes lessons learned on the Mountain Top weren’t meant just for you. What if you were meant to share your experience with someone who’s in their own dark valley? Broken, hurting people, lost in darkness, can not be given hope or healed if we stay on the top of the mountain, getting our sunburn on.
God’s Presence Goes Beyond the Tops of Mountains…
Here’s the best news often forgotten in the Valley:
God’s presence is not limited to the Mountain Tops.
Before Moses’ Mount Sinai Mountain Top Experience (Exodus 19-31), God’s presence was already with his people as Israel entered the desert (Exodus 13:21-22). Even after the 40 days on Mount Sinai, when Moses descended the mountain, God continued to meet with him outside the Israelite camp at the base of the mountain (Exodus 33).
The most famous, recognizable psalm, Psalm 23, reminds us,
“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me…”
Further on, in Psalm 139:7-12, David writes,
“Where can I go from your spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise up on the wings of dawn,
If I settle on the far side of the sea,
Even there your hand will guide me,
Your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
And the light will become night around me,”
Even the darkness will not be dark to you;
The night will shine like the day,
For darkness is as light to you.”
We don’t need to fear stepping down from the Mountain Top as if it’s stepping out of God’s presence. He was with us before we even climbed to the top.
Because God Descended the Mountain We Could Not Climb to Dwell With Us.
God is not the distant, judgmental grandfather-in-the-sky that we so often view him as. No amount of “good deed” could earn our way up to him. Instead, God came down to us from his place in Heaven, in the form of Jesus Christ, so that he would live among us.
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)
Not only did God live among us in the form of a man, as Jesus Christ, but he also destroyed the barrier of Sin that prevented us from having a relationship with him. Jesus lived the perfect life we couldn’t and died the death we deserved. After Christ’s resurrection, he sent us the Holy Spirit –– God’s presence –– to dwell in and with us.
God’s presence is not limited by altitude, location, time, or our choices. We don’t have to be stuck on a rollercoaster of the extreme spiritual highs and brokenhearted lows of chasing the next Mountain Top Experience. Knowing he's with us, we can confidently take the next step God lays before us. So when we’ve had a Mountain Top Experience, let’s meditate on the lessons God taught us in the high points of our lives and share that experience with others who need it as much as we once needed it.