Reaching New Heights: My Journey of Transformation, Faith, and Victory

Have you ever encouraged yourself with this challenge or one like it? If I never scale this mountain in my life, I will never experience the view from the top of it.

That is a challenge that I have often contemplated. Over the last two years, I have lost well over 100 lbs., as I've climbed my mountain towards a healthier life. I won't sugar-coat the process: it has been a time of discipline and moment-by-moment choices. It was a year of choosing to climb my own mountain, instead of just listening to others talk about the views they were getting from the top of theirs.

This analogy is especially real to me because I live in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a city at the base of some of the most beautiful mountains in the world. Many of my friends over the years would literally go on adventures to hike a 14'er mountain trail or tackle the ultimate climb to the top of majestic Pikes Peak. I would listen to their stories of adventures and see the photos they had taken of the lakes, waterfalls and beautiful views of the valleys and plains below. All of these views belonged to them though. It was their revelation of their experience. Sitting across from them as they shared, I only had a second-hand knowledge of these wonders from their pictures. It's true their photographs documented that these views existed in Colorado, but I hadn't experienced them myself.

This illustration is much like our walk with Jesus. Many of us walk through our Chrisitan life listening to the revelation and experiences of others by trying to live out our lives on the spiritual lessons of our favorite Bible teachers. This will only get us so far. If we are to truly grow in our knowledge of Him, once we hear that such beautiful spiritual views of Him exist, we need to go see them for ourselves. We too must be willing to set aside the time and make the climb to pursue a deeper relationship with God through Jesus on our own. In a way, that view can only be ours when we to scale that mountain and see the view of His beauty that He has created for us to experience firsthand. As disciples, our testimonies within our relationship with Christ are to inspire others to make the decision to pursue Him. We each must climb our mountain for ourselves.

See you at the top!