The Long Way Up

We just wrapped up ministry in Ukraine, and Elana and I are spending a few days in Greece — conveniently, so close to Israel. The city we're staying in sits on top of a mountain, and to get up to it you have two choices: ride the cable car or walk. I like physical challenges, so I chose to walk. Whenever we travel and I see a mountain, I want to climb it. In hindsight, starting earlier in the day would have been wiser — the sun was already climbing by the time I began.

But the walk gave me more than a workout. It gave me three small lessons I want to pass along, humbly, because I'm nothing special — I just enjoy doing hard things and challenging myself.

1. A Word of Encouragement Carries Real Weight

About two-thirds of the way up, sweating and having already begun to question my decision, a woman passing by on her way down looked at me and in broken English said, “You go up?” I responded in the affirmative. She nodded with great approval.

It was a small gesture. She probably forgot it within minutes. I haven’t. Something in me straightened up and kept going a little stronger after that.

That’s the power of encouragement — it costs the giver almost nothing, but it can refuel the receiver for the next stretch of the climb. Scripture speaks exactly to this. Proverbs tells us, “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones” (Proverbs 16:24).

Healing to the bones — that is exactly what I need at this stage in the race of life. The writer of Hebrews goes further and makes it a command, not a suggestion:

“But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13).

Encouragement isn’t fluff. It’s part of how God sustains people through hard climbs — physical and otherwise. I don’t know if that woman knew what her one sentence in less-than-perfect English would do. I’d like to be that kind of voice for someone else this week. Words of encouragement are one of the love languages in Gary Chapman’s book, The Five Languages of Love. And it is my strongest one. It’s how I give love and how I receive it.

Halfway up the mountain, I found a little bit of shade and took a respite.

That’s another lesson… It’s important to rest on our way up the mountain.

2. The Climb Itself Isn’t the Point — Readiness Is

There’s nothing spiritually significant about hiking up a mountain. It’s not a redemptive act. Nobody needed me to take the harder path — the cable car would have gotten me to the same place. But I’ve come to believe that doing hard things on purpose, even meaningless ones, trains something in us that matters later, when the hard thing isn't optional, and the stakes are real.

Paul uses this exact picture when he talks about spiritual discipline. He compares the Christian life to an athlete in training:

“Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable... I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:25, 27).

The training isn't the goal. The readiness it produces is. You don't build endurance the day you need it — you build it on ordinary days, on mountains that don’t really matter, so that when a mountain shows up that does matter, your legs already know how to climb.

Without getting too intense, the mark of the beast will be a loyalty test more than anything else—just as Roman Christians in the early centuries of the faith had to refuse to burn incense and claim that Caesar is God. For many, this cost them their lives. One day, we may have a similar choice. Train now so you’ll be ready then.

3. Everyone Was Coming Down — Almost No One Was Going Up

Here’s what struck me most. The whole way up, I passed a steady stream of people heading down — tired, satisfied, cable-car riders and hikers alike, moving with gravity. During the entire climb, I only saw three other people going up. And along the way there were donkeys too, used to carry supplies and tourists up the trail — you could smell them well before you saw them. Not exactly a spiritual detail, but it was part of the walk.

It’s easy to go downhill. It’s easy to move with the crowd. Going against the grain — climbing when everyone else is coasting down — takes something extra. I thought of the cover of Keith Green's album “No Compromise,” which shows one man standing upright while a crowd around him bows down. It always reminds me of Mordecai, who refused to bow to Haman even though everyone else in the king's gate did: “But Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage” (Esther 3:2).

That single refusal brought about an historic episode in which the Jewish people were preserved. One person, going the opposite direction of the crowd, willing to be conspicuous about it. Paul says something similar to ordinary believers, like you and me, not just to famous exceptions:  “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2).

Most days, being faithful doesn't look dramatic. It just looks like being one of three people climbing while a crowd of others is heading down. Nobody applauds it. We recently left our apartment that we’ve lived in for almost the past four years. We’ve had a good relationship with our landlord, but his response to us as we left floored us. He told us if we ever came back, he would kick out whoever was there to let us live there! And he said other incredibly kind things. But for all those years, we were just being our normal selves with him—normal as believers, people seeking to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit. For us, it was really no big deal. We were amazed at the impact that had on him and his wife.

A Humble Closing

I want to be clear — I'm not writing this because I think climbing a mountain makes me admirable. It doesn’t. Plenty of people who rode the cable car that day are more faithful, more disciplined, and more courageous than I am in the ways that actually count. I just like doing hard things, and this time God used a sweaty, smelly, donkey-scented walk up a Greek mountain to teach me something. A kind word can heal more than we realize. The hard things we choose today are quietly preparing us for the hard things we won’t get to choose. And sometimes faithfulness simply means being willing to walk uphill when everyone else is heading down.

I hope whatever mountain is in front of you this week, you'll keep climbing.