Climbing with Jesus

     “Matt, do you want to go for a walk before breakfast,” Christy asked this morning? Normally we walk before breakfast. We get up, spend some time in devotions, and then go for our morning preamble. We walk a particular route of two miles in our neighborhood, taking around 28 minutes and 30 seconds, give or take. Spring, summer, fall, and winter you will find us stumping around our neighborhood. Christy, the ever-loving sacrificial spouse even gets up at 5:30 A.M., in the deep dark of winter, to accompany me on my morning rounds. As required, we bundle up. This morning, however, I thought before I answered. This sunrise found us at her parent’s cabin in Cloudcroft, New Mexico.

     I paused before answering. A walk from her parent’s cabin entails hills. Located on a pine-shaded bluff overlooking the highway that enters Cloudcroft from the east, her parent’s cabin sits on high ground. Unlike the roads around Lubbock, all the roads in the area climb and fall, rather steeply at times. In Lubbock, I never think about hills or rise and fall. We have rise and fall. The few times I’ve ridden a bike or run in Lubbock, I’ve become aware of the topography; but only in an academic sense. I know that Quaker, which runs north and south near my house gently climbs as you head north. Things in Cloudcroft are much different, requiring an adjustment in how I view things. Am I willing to head out on a walk which will raise my heart rate along with my elevation? In winter, I think about the conditions of the road; whether walking or driving. Do I wish to navigate the grade? While on walks and I look at cabins as places to stay, making mental note about which ones would require a four-wheel drive in the snows of winter…almost all. My point of view has changed.

     A relationship with Jesus calls us to such radical change. Walks around my neighborhood in Lubbock are casual affairs with little thought to cardiovascular affect. If I want to push myself in Lubbock, I must increase the pace. Getting past the drive, which slopes downhill, will elevate the heart-rate here in Cloudcroft; which may say quite a bit about my sedentary life. The simple act of walking is quite different here. Jesus calls me to such a change. Simple adjustments do not come near the radical alteration He desires. Life with Jesus implies a totally new approach; a new viewpoint. He wants to remake me, to lift me into the rarified atmosphere of His presence, and that changes everything. I no longer view the world and those who travel its surface like I used to.

     Often I make the mistake that somehow Jesus just wants to clean me up, make me presentable; spiritually speaking as it were. Jesus wants so much more, demands it in fact. He wants to totally remake me, top to bottom. We’re not talking about a nick of paint here, a touch of spackle there. No, Jesus wants to totally renovate, knocking out walls, adding new rooms, tearing out old dark and dingy spaces. He wants to radically change how I view things, how I make my decisions, and how I interact with the community around me. I often want to continue on my easy morning walk. Jesus wants me to go to a new and different level. Before acquiescing, He urges me to count the cost.

     And that is particularly challenging for us as Christians today. We, in our Western culture, want things easy. We like drive-through Christianity as it were. We’ve settled for a homogenized anemic version of Christianity. We don’t mind cleaning up a bit, scrubbing off some of the more obvious stains, but do not wish to embrace the stringent call of Christ. Jesus calls us up and out. He wants to take us into the rarified air and that stretches our lungs. Loving those who are different is not easy. Laying down our lives, taking risk, sacrificing our comfort does not come easy. We want the safety and comfort of the flatlands, terrain that does not elevate the heart-rate. Submission to Christ, being His disciple, does not allow for such an anemic response. He reaches out to us, drawing us into a new existence, one where we no longer view things as we used to. From altitude, we see things more clearly. Looking at pictures from Cloudcroft the sky seems more vibrant, less subdued, clouds crisper, more dramatic. Jesus wants a similar effect on our spiritual vision.

     Climbing with Christ opens our eyes to the fact that we are related to all mankind. After all, He bled and died for each of us and yearns to embrace all of us. Driven by that salient fact we must reach out as He did, seeking to love all we meet. Of course this lifestyle includes risk. Jesus loved unconditionally and it cost Him dearly. He calls us to the same manner of life. Often when hiking around Cloudcroft my rate soars with the altitude, but the rewards when I stand on the high-ground with chest heaving and heart pounding surpass. Life with Him exercises me; but, the view, oh my the view.