eWell July 29, 2009: Back to Godby Edition

"Come Down" by Kyle Szendel

eWell Header

Looking to the west I saw the setting sun pour forth a brilliant light that splattered the countryside with hues of an unnamed color, infusing all of nature to glisten warmly around its rustic edges. As my car accelerated along the old country highway, I rolled down all the windows to channel in a great rush of dusty air that invigorated my nostrils with the swirling scent of dungy soil and sweetly cut meadow grasses. In this moment I knew I was caught within a set piece of deliberate beauty and divinely inspired craftsmanship as I beheld hungrily with my artist's eyes the pastoral vista staged ingeniously by the same majestic God into whose arms I run daily with joy and sorrow and cry "Daddy!"

A simple drive through aptly named Calvary, Georgia had become an unexpected place of spiritual exaltation and rejuvenation. Oh, how I had wished to remain there forever, basking in the excitement of God's inspiration and delighting in His infinite glory, of which I was reminded by his creation! It quickly became a place of perpetual desire in my soul as I longed to escape from my job and classes and all other responsibilities so that my soul might be filled in the presence of God's eternal attributes and divine nature that were clearly seen in the things that He had made.

The following week, my attention was turned to the gospel of Mark, to the story of Christ's inexplicably awesome transfiguration upon the mountaintop, where He revealed some of His divine glory to three of the disciples in an exceedingly white light. With an encouraging word from Oswald Chambers, I was pointedly reminded that "the true test of our spiritual life is in exhibiting the power to descend from the mountain," or maybe the rolling hills of Georgia. He assured me that "It is a wonderful thing to be on the mountaintop with God, but a person only gets there so that he may later go down and lift up the demon-possessed people in the valley." I am called, in fact, to return to Tallahassee, to a hurting world whose lost and dying starve for the truth of the gospel of Jesus, to proclaim Christ's triumph over sin and death to all people in love.

Chambers says it best when he asserts that "we have all experienced times of exaltation on the mountain, when we have seen things from God's perspective and have wanted to stay there. But God will never allow us to stay there . . . we are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life-those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life, and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength."

The moments when God's divine glory is somehow revealed are moments for me to recognize their character-building design so that I might be refueled and reinvigorated for God's great purpose in this dark and dying world, with the attitude of Isaiah when he said "here am I, send me!" I must be aware of my spiritually selfish inclination to want these mountaintop experiences to be the only kind of experience I have, where life would be so easy to live out perfectly if these moments never ended.

And so I have come down from the rolling hills of Georgia and into the valley, to the place where I am called to be, no matter my surroundings, I shall remain satisfied in the loving arms of my Daddy.