Coming Down from the Mountaintop

Image via WikipediaI arrive home, my mind still swirling somewhere between Thursday night dinner and Sunday morning worship. My thoughts collide as they race from one memory to the next. The entire memory is shrouded by a Holy Cloud. I struggle to breathe. The pressure in my lungs so powerful that I wonder if perhaps there is something more physical going on. I know that I have met the challenge that God gave Moses in the wilderness when He met him at a burning bush and told him to take off his shoes for this ground was holy ground. This weekend, I took off my shoes. I worshiped on Holy Ground.


And then ... I came home.



Image via WikipediaHome to the ordinary. The every day. The cleaning. The mistakes of my past. The life that I have allowed instead of lived. The juxtaposition was overwhelming. My mind and heart wanted to flee back to the mountaintop, but I knew that I must stay where I was. My senses spiraled as I wondered whether I could survive the assault. Could I look at my life through these newly opened eyes and make the changes that need to be made? How much must I change to go from living an allowed existence to living a confident, fulfilled life?


Image via Wikipedia
A sweet friend stopped by to ask about the weekend. I realized as I spoke with her that I finally understood Moses on the mountaintop. After three days of basking in the PRESENCE OF GOD, he came back with the written word of God, divinely scribed on tablets of stone, only to see those around him going on with life as usual. His senses were assaulted. He was angry. He lashed out in the only way that he could to express his frustration. He broke the tablets that God has just given him. The most precious things that he had received, gone because he was overwhelmed.

I did the same today. My tablets were not written in stone, but in my heart. I lived on the mountaintop for three days and when I descended, my world was still the same old world, and I did not share the grace that I wish I had. I found myself yelling over the television instead of turning it off to speak lovingly to my children across the room. I secluded myself at times that I could have spent with my family. I put too much blame on others for my time management instead of setting firm boundaries on my time and responsibilities. I let my guilt carry me where I promised I would not allow it to manipulate me any more.

But just as Moses was able to ascend to the mountaintop again and receive God's promises once more, so I was able to go to the throne of mercy and pray for grace and forgiveness. Tomorrow I face another day of living life, but I am preparing myself to live confidently and expectantly. Not letting time slide by as it will, but being intentional. Knowing that my days are numbered, and that while my Savior and God controls my days and life, I am responsible for how the minutes are spent.