Tip of My Iceberg

            photo courtesy of Joshua Earle on Unsplash

We have a Colorado daughter who was inadvertently born in Fort Collins when I didn’t make it back home to Wisconsin in time for her birth. Unexpected yet wonderful.

Courtney had fallen in love with Colorful Colorado at an early age. When she was quite young, she informed me she intended to live there someday.

We lived in Florida at the time. Flat, humid Florida.

Courtney has shared how she and her family go mountain climbing and hiking. She and her husband have conquered several of the “14ers” in the state–those mountain peaks that are 14,000 feet high or higher. There are 58 peaks in the state that top that height.

Their first excursion upward was Mount Massive. It sounded magical to Courtney, so she chose it as the first peak to seek to conquer.

She had second thoughts as she saw how challenging it was. This was when she was dating her husband, and not wanting him to think her weak and incapable, she trudged on, stopping frequently to “take pictures”.

They made it to the top. It did hinder her, however, from wanting to do another one very soon after that.

We challenge mountains in our daily lives, wanting to accomplish that which seems hard, maybe impossible. Those things we’ve never attempted, opportunities that cause us to fear personal failure, and challenges that concern us because we have no idea how it will turn out.

This is life. Looking back through history, its always been this way. We will run into tough trials consistently, and we need to figure out how to deal with them.

David was the youngest of eight sons, a teenager of no more than sixteen years, who was a shepherd. His brothers fought with the Israelites agains the Philistines, who were an ongoing enemy of the Hebrew nation. Sometimes Israel won; sometime the Philistines won.

This time, however, the Philistines had an ace in the hole, their champion, Goliath, who stood at nine feet, nine inches, a real mountain of a man. He would come out daily and taunt the army of Israel, and his appearance alone filled these soldiers with fear. Goliath dared any one of the Israelites to fight him, and whoever lost would be slaves to the other kingdom.

Nobody wanted any part of that.

David was sent to the front lines by his father to see how his brothers fared. He was present when the giant came out and shouted his taunt to the Israelite army. David was stunned to see fear on the faces of these soldiers. He couldn’t understand why they were afraid to fight when God was on their side.

He decided to fight the giant himself.

King Saul tried to get him to wear his armor, but it was too big on David. He went to battle with Goliath with a slingshot and five smooth stones he’d gathered from a nearby river.

Goliath mocked the boy; he was dismissive of so young and small a person who would dare come up against him.

“David replied to the Philistine, ‘You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies–the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. Today the Lord will conquer you, and I will kill you and cut off your head. And then I will give the dead bodies of your men to the birds and wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.’”     1 Samuel 17:45-46

David didn’t hesitate. He ran out to meet Goliath, his slingshot in hand, whirling the stone in it around his head. When he let the stone fly, it embedded itself in Goliath’s forehead, and he fell face down on the ground. David grabbed Goliath’s sword and cut his head off.

We all have giants in our lives, mountains too great for us to even consider climbing. But with the help of God, His strength and presence, we are able to accomplish more than we can imagine.

Like climbing a 14er, you have to take the first step to begin going up.

Invite God onto the journey. He never tires, and He will never leave us stranded without a way out.