The Ascent

This is the picture from the top of a mountain at the end of a very cold—I’m talking 10 degrees cold—hike. I’d done this hike before, but hadn’t made it to the top yet. It was a snowy day in my little town and I was eager to get to the top and see what the peaks of the mountains looked like coated in a fresh blanket of snow.

So, I drag three of my friends with me and we ascend. Snot dribbling down our nose, hair frozen white around our faces, legs going numb, we keep going up and up. All I wanted was to get to the peak.

Then we get to the top, and it’s completely and utterly foggy. You can’t see anything. I’d wanted to see the view at the top for months, had hiked in below freezing weather for it, and then I couldn’t even see anything. Granted, I still enjoyed spending quality time with my friends, but I’d built up such an expectation in my mind of what the view from the top would be like. I was already mapping out the angles of the pictures I would take, what my Instagram caption would be, even how I would be changing my laptop wallpaper to the pretty view.

While I didn’t collapse into tears from my disappointed expectation of the view, sometimes I overhype other things in my life so much and place such an importance on them that I end up severely heartbroken. I’m metaphorically lugging myself through harsh cold and up these steep hills, thinking that at the top, what I’ll gain will be so worth it.

Recently, at my church at school, my pastor talked about the word “epithemia” (now, he spoke it out loud, so my spelling could be insanely wrong). Epithemia is a Greek word from the Bible describing an over-desire. It is okay to want things in life and to have goals, but sometimes we over-desire them, and place a huge expectation on them that they cannot possibly meet. The mountain peak was a shallow example of this, but it’s so true for other aspects in my life, and I’m sure its the same for others.

Personally, I struggle with placing an over importance on relationships. I’m about to turn twenty-two and I have never had a boyfriend, and honestly, sometimes thinking about that kind of stinks! It’s a desire that has remained pretty consistent in my life for the past few years, but is usually low-key because I already feel fulfilled with other things in my life like the Lord and my friends. Occasionally, though, the enemy brings me down to a dark place and tries to remind me of what’s “missing” in my life. I start to over-desire being in a relationship and suddenly all my thoughts are revolving around that goal. And then, when texting whats-his-name ends up not working out, I spiral and end up severely disappointed and a little broken hearted.

It is not a bad thing to desire a relationship. Where the poison comes in is when I place that desire over my desire of Jesus Christ. I know--I know—that my only true fulfillment will come from my relationship with the Lord, placing that expectation on anything else will only leave me in despair (and is way too much pressure to put on someone or something else anyway!).

It is important to do some self-reflection, see what I’m desiring over God, and to pray about it and hand it over to God, and realize that only God will give me the fulfillment my heart is desperately seeking! There is no need to freeze my backside off for a view that is lacking (just trying to connect it back to the metaphor here, folks).

I pray that how the Lord is working in this area of my life would give you encouragement and that you would take time today to pray and do self-reflection and realize any desire you are placing above God, and hand it to him!

Matthew 6:33 “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.”