Alternate LTE, 2-19-09

Being one that was three minutes behind the limit for the corporate test, I did not attend to Mountain LTE. However I did do the Alternate LTE while the rest of the interns were gone. It wasn’t anything as amazing as the mountain would have been, we only watched a movie. However much I wish for my time to have been different it wasn’t. I was one of those who were stuck back on campus. While this didn’t test me as much as the mountain would have, the movie in itself really opened me up to an understanding of the courage you must have to keep pressing after God despite what tries to press you down.

The movie was on a Mount Everest Expedition, it showed teams of people who went together to do the unthinkable and climb a mountain that had killed to so many others in the past. Throughout the movie the climbers faced much hardship, and pains. This mountain wasn’t something people should be able to breathe; they had to take oxygen tanks. They were weak and tired but still they kept going knowing that something waited for them at end. Even though I didn’t experience the mountain LTE. This movie in itself was a lot like it. These people had to push their limits and not let their flesh and nature rule over their outcome. When everything was against them they still kept moving. Some might think what they did was crazy. But the outcome inspires others to do the same. By challenging themselves to do what needs to be done and not what they want to be done.

This I think we need to do with God. We need to press into him instead of others because they will only keep us down. Like the climbers there is so much you give up to make the first step into the new life of nearness to Jesus. You give up much that you once held dear or enjoyed. In the end though the film showed the triumphant and joy that comes when you don’t give up, but press through those trials to stand on the top of that mountain, and still be there. There are many mountains in our lives that would take work to climb. We won’t always be in the most comfortable circumstances following the Lord, but in the end just to stand before his throne and be welcomed into the arms of the father makes it completely worth it.