The Journey

It was the last day of my 28 day sabbatical when I hiked my way along a path towards Bell Rock in Sedona, Arizona.  As I made my way along the path, I got to the point that I usually do, where I could no longer just go where it was leading me.  Call it rebellion or curiosity for adventure, I don't care, but it was time to leave the path.  So off it I went and up the red rocks I climbed.  I got myself safely up to a spot where a few people were still visible below, but they were far enough to where they couldn't hear me singing "Beautiful Day" with Bono on my iPod.  And thankfully, my iPod was up loud enough to where I couldn't hear myself singing with Bono either! 

I took my blue pack off my back and set it down, and then found a nice spot of red rock to sit on.  Bono was done and it was time for Jesus.  So I clicked around on my iPod until I found my audio Bible.  "Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.  And he opened his mouth and taught them saying 'Blessed are the poor in spirit…"  Thus began Jesus' Sermon on the Mount as read by Max McLean in Matthew 5,6, and 7.  Now I had read the Sermon on the Mount numerous times before.  But there was something fresh about hiking around on a mountain and listening to it audibly.  (If you don't have an audio copy of the Bible, you should get one here and head outside somewhere.)

So I listened, and pictured myself there as if Jesus was saying these words for the first time.  The sun was shining upon my face, the temperature was a perfect 70 degrees, the breeze was light, the view...amazing.  It was a postcard moment, a "happy place" I could mentally escape to later when the realities of life hit.  It was literally a mountaintop experience.  I was enjoying it so much that before I knew it, Jesus began to wrap up his sermon.  "Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.  And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."

Those words, at that exact moment, were targeted right for my heart.  It was as though it really was just me and Jesus on the mountain, and He teaching this for the first time.  Recalling the things that God had taught me over the past 28 days of my sabbatical, (which would be too much for this one blog), and looking ahead to my re-entry into normal life just hours away, Jesus' closing words were speaking loud and clear.   

See, my sabbatical began on the SAND at the beach in Florida, where I was an exhausted man who had unhealthy patterns of living that required deep reflection and repentance.  Now 28 days later, I was rested, refreshed and energized, sitting on a ROCK in Arizona listening to Jesus tell me I could go back to being a fool, like the guy who landed on the SAND, or I could move forward in wisdom, like the man who built his house on the ROCK.   The only difference between the two…is obedience.  Incredible mountaintop experiences with God aren't meant to be something we just long to escape to, they are to be fuel for our obedience going forward.