Climbing mountains of over 14,000 ft. altitude is a badge of status in Colorado. There are 53 such peaks in Colorado. A group of overachievers tries to climb all 53 of those peaks. It’s a status thing and they even have patches to sew on their clothes for accomplishing it.
Some of those peaks are quite difficult climbs and a few are pretty easy. All of them are in the thin air, hard-to-breathe category. I experienced that when I climbed Pikes Peak. Above 11,000 ft. the breathing becomes very labored.
One day three of us ministers decided we wanted to scale one of the 14-ers. It was an easy one with a road you could drive most of the way up and an assent up a dome shaped top. However, the day we chose to do it turned out rainy. We started out anyway, hoping the weather would improve. It didn’t. It got worse.
We finally spotted an old lean-to shed that some old miner had probably built. We thought that maybe we could wait out the rain in it. The shelter leaked. It was so small that the three of us had trouble fitting under it, actually getting out of the rain and the drips. Our leader had brought a small gas burner and the fixings for coffee in his day pack, so we had an expresso while we waited. Like I said, it only got worse.
There were no trees near us – we were above the tree line. There is an old saying among the frontiersmen of old. It goes along the line of “Off the mountain by 3 pm.” Why this saying? Because the summer afternoons in Colorado are notorious for sudden-appearing powerful thunderstorms. It was a matter of survival. So, here we were, in a rickety little shelter with no other pro- tection around, in the rain and afternoon quickly approaching.
Shelter did I say? Well, sort of, but definitely not a protection from lightning bolts. We decided that before any electrical activity started up that we weren’t climbing that 14-er that day, and we started back down. Feeling the comfort of each other’s company, telling funny stories together and sipping an expresso was not sufficient. Things could get dangerous very quickly. We opted to do the smart thing and get off the mountain before the thunderstorms arrived.
Some situations we get into in life are dangerous. They are good situations in which to exercise caution, but sometimes we need more than caution. King Saul was out to kill David. Therefore, David and his men fled to some caves to hide out. David felt the pressure of King Saul’s pursuit. He sensed the danger he was in and turned to the Lord, his God, for help.
In Psalm 57:1 David pleads; “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge, in the shadow of your wings I take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by.”
Like us on the mountain, David was seeking a shelter. The storms of destruction were upon him. But the shelter he took was not in some leaking, decrepit, not-safe shack. No, his shelter was under the wings of almighty God. That shelter was safe, secure, strong and well protecting.
That same shelter is available to us as well. Jesus invites us to join him in that safe and protected place. We are welcomed. We are wanted. There is comfort there. It’s much better than a rickety, old, leaking miners shed. Let’s join Him there.
– Just a Thought Dale Fillmore is lead pastor at New Day Church.
