"Continue to Use Lowest Gear"

People talk about "mountain top experiences."

Usually they refer to things that are exciting, romantic, super spiritual, or successful--like Wednesday when we succeeded in getting twelve people to the top of Pikes Peak!

Those times when you get to the top and look for miles around--clear to New Mexico, in the clear, sunny air minus any clouds, haze, fog or smoke. 

Visionary experiences, when anything seems attainable (as long as you don't have a problem with the thin air and dizziness and nausea and shortness of breath). 

Some people hit mountain tops every couple of weeks and celebrate with a lot of noise.
But when you are the driver of a big van completely full of twelve people, you have to mind the sign:
"Continue to use lowest gear."
You don't just come flying down the mountain at top speed.

For one thing, you  might miss the mountain goats sunning themselves on the mountainside just down from the road. You park along the side and get out quietly and stand watching at a respectful distance. No screaming and yelling--you will scare them and they will run away. So just be quiet and you will get to enjoy their presence.
If you rush full speed ahead, you might also miss the moments of fun when the kids slide on the snow.

You stop and let your brakes cool while you take pictures, make memories, and nurture relationships.

You may even sit down and rest a little while.

Remember how small your problems are, and how big God is.

It's good to "continue to use lowest gear" coming down the mountain, because it is very, very safe.
No headlong carelessness, no bragging, boasting, huffing bitterly about the past, or otherwise racing headlong around hairpin curves and down steep, slippery slopes.

 Also it is good to just come slowly down, because within a few hours, you might be miles away on the flatland prairie, about to head into the valley of the shadow.

We came home from Pikes Peak just in time for Carrie and Rose to get their scheduled mandolin and fiddle lessons over Skype, and for the younger boys and Rose to do chores for the rancher.
Sam and the cousins and I split and sawed more firewood to take to our friends who were almost out of firewood, as we'd only been able to take a little in the back of the van earlier that morning.

Then we went twenty miles the other direction to take the cousins to the Paint Mines, where Indians used to mine different colors of clay to make paint.

A place of rocks and caves and silence and strange formations.

 From the parking lot, you wouldn't know this place exists, but suddenly, you are going down into the valley and the shadow.

A place where rabbits scuttle...

and owls swoop and land to keep a hawkeye on you. 

Only hours before, you were on the mountain of success, elation, and excitement.

But just take appropriate care--Use the right gear.

God is with you as much in the valley, the caves, and the shadows with the scared little rabbits and the owl as He is on the top of that mountain 50 miles away.

The same owl with its "Whoo-oo?" may be imagined to be saying scary things like "Whooo--you--Booo! Whooo is toooo blame?"
or it could be saying, "If God be for you, whooo can be against yoooou?"
"Whooo shall bring a charge against God's elect. It is God Whooo justifies."
"Whooo is he who condemns? It is Christ whooo died."

"Whooo shall separate us from the love of Christ?"

The same owl with its eerie hoot, could seem to be saying one thing to one person and quite another to another person.

It might all depend on which gear you are in--humility or highmindedness, healing or hurt, haste or humble intentionality.

No, "in all these things, --mountaintop experiences, cave shadows, valleys, sunshine or shadow,

"we are more than conquerors through Him Whooo loved us."

(Romans 8)

[The paintings are Timmy's. He learned this technique from the art class for Native Americans in South Dakota last summer at Dale and Judy Sherman's mission.]