Mountains, Valleys, and Places In Between

"Ain't no mountain high, ain't no valley low" are the words belted out in 60's soul song.  But the truth is there are mountains high and there are valleys low.  And many days we trek through them.  A mountain top is that pinnacle, peak experience of jubilation and joy.  While the valley may be summed up best by the psalm "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death" primarily because a valley feels like dying. 

Yet, while we climb mountains to great moments and we fall deep into desolate valleys, the majority of our lives are spent somewhere in between.  Caught between your wedding day and that first big fight are all the days of living.  Smashed between your first day of college and the anxiety of your final finals, is four years of living.  Sandwhiched between a baby's first breath and an old man's last are all the days of the in-between.  While the mountains and the valleys are usually the easiest memories to pull from, don't miss the moments in-between, otherwise you might just missed the majority of life as it happens. 

So many times our focus sets on the big moments - whether big wins or big losses - and we lose sight of all the moments that are found in between ascending and descending hills. It is often the places in-between where we are shaped the moments.  I have found in easier in life to worship on the mountain top in the Moses' moments of God's glory.  In the same I have found prayer easier to come by in the depths of personal hells.  Where we have to tough it out is when life is life.  When life is not throwing a curveball, but giving us our daily dose of the every day.  It is in those moments where instead of being without option and sensing the necessity of going to God, that we have to "chose" who or "what" it is we will worship or pray to. 

The toughest roads are not the climb to the top or the tumble down, oftentimes the terrain that requires the greatest navigation is the road in-between the two!  Keep climbing the mountains, surviving the valleys, and navigating all life's moments in-between!