As we are taking off on this second Journey into the Deep trip, the Lord reminded me of something that happened on the first trek in North Georgia.
We were climbing the second highest peak in Georgia and none of us had ever been there before. That meant that none of us had any idea of what to look for to let us know when we had arrived at our destination. It was a pretty brutal climb up, but we continued to hike and stop along the way to take in the amazing views.
Every time we stopped we would stay for a minute and think, “Is this the top? Is this what we are looking for?" Something inside of us would say, “No, we have to keep going, what if it gets better, what if there's more?"
So we continued to hike and we would see another really amazing view. We were tired and it was getting late and we said, “Is this the place we should stop? Is this the place we should camp out?" Something inside of us told us, "Keep going!"
We got nearly to the top of the mountain, not knowing that we were about 100 yards from the summit – and it was one of the most majestic views we had ever seen. We were so close to stopping and setting up camp and something inside still said, “What if there is more?” So we continued to hike just a little bit further and arrived at the summit. The view from that place couldn’t be compared with anything we had seen previously on the hike.
This is the same thing that happens in our journey with Lord. As we experience more of Him through different denominations, situations, communites, cultures, circumstances, and influences, we get a new glimpse of Him and a new revelation of His glory. It is easy to want to camp out in that new place and say, “We have arrived. This is it. This is the destination." In those places, we have seen more than we have ever seen before but the Lord is continuing to say, “Come up higher! There is more of me to know, there is more of me to experience!”
And as I was thinking of this, I realized that He is our focus and He is our destination.
The thing about destinations on the trail is that when people reach their destinations, they either stop or go back. The word tells us that the Lord gives the Spirit without measure. We will never exhaust the depths of Christ, the depths of the Father and in that way, the journey is actually the destination. There is no place to stop and say we have arrived – never a place that we can say we have attained all there is to know of Him. Because He wants to be known, to reveal himself to us and show us new dimensions in Him that we have never experienced before.
So as we take off on this journey, please pray that we will experience the Lord in a depth that we never could imagine and in such a manner that our lives will never, ever be the same – that we experience His glory in such a way that we could never go back.
