Life can be steep. An uphill climb. Trudging upward like a mountain. Long made plans can get rearranged by harsh circumstances that throw us off track. The grade uphill slows us down. We have to catch a lower gear and put our head down to forge forward.
In all my years of cycling, the hills were my least favorite. Right off our driveway in Runaway Bay is a very steep hill. One day I was climbing up it barely turning the pedals over when I heard a golf cart coming up behind me. I expected him to pass. He seemed to find sadistic enjoyment in watching my struggle. I started huffing and puffing straining for every foot of ground gained. When I finally reached the top, I pulled over and stopped to let him pass and to catch my breath. He commented what a good climb that had been. He was also a cyclist. Hills for a cyclist are obstacles to conquer and overcome.
When hills come on my bike, it is just a matter of gritting it out. I have to get my mind right, grip the handlebars and pedal harder. It is the same in battling the hills of life. We get it through those times one prayer, one devotion, one scripture, one day, one worship service, and one cry for help after another. We must get our mind right taking every thought captive in obedience to Christ to pedal forward. Just when we think we cannot do it any longer, God comes and gives us a strength through Him we did not know we could access. God made us with the capacity to endure through the hills of life with His help. His power pulls us through one step after another.
I think of the many people who work at jobs they abhor. They continue to climb year after year with God's help to provide for their family. Some climb up the hills of being caregivers. I heard about a young man who has never gotten to play sports because his mother has battled stage 4 cancer for a decade and all the family had to help pitch in to take care of her.
Some people get blindsided by steep grades they never saw coming like divorce and death. You may have been cruising through life smoothly when you got hit by one of those. They can sure take the wind out of your sails and bring your momentum to a stop. Giving up seems like a more viable option than climbing. Climbing is not taking the path of least resistance. You were born not to give up but to climb.
God put in us the ability to climb through the hardest hills of life with His help. He can help you persevere through chronic pain, climb over cancer, scale the heights of sorrows, and push up and over problems like pandemics.
The Bible is filled with examples of people who had to climb over adversity. Joseph. Moses. Joshua. David. Elijah. Jeremiah. Job. Even Jesus joyfully endured the cross up on the hill of Golgotha. I am not saying following their example is easy. What I am saying is that it is possible. All things are possible with God. We can do all things through Him who strengthens us.
No matter what you are going through, I exhort you to muster all the faith you have in Jesus to pull you up and over your mountain. Please do not lose heart or grow weary in well doing. I urge you to press on and persevere one day after the next. Surely better days will come. One day you might just look behind you and discover that you made it all the way to the top. If not in this lifetime, all followers of Jesus will do so in eternity. Keep pedaling. You were born to climb.
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