Mountains to the Valleys

Yesterday, I had the blessing of attending a friend's voice recital. She's a beautiful singer AND an amazing songwriter and she performed some of her original works.

In one of her songs, she described that mountains were a place to be inspired and see God's presence in the valleys she'd traveled through, but that ultimately, she was made to walk in the valleys. It's a faithful, long trek, and although it can be hard to see more than a few steps at a time, God is with us and He does great works through our obedience in the little everyday things.

I deeply resonated with this truth. There are few moments in life where I feel like I'm on a mountain and everything makes sense. More often, I'm in the valleys, walking day by day, often doing the mundane tasks and only able to see far enough to do the next thing. Her song was a reminder to me that God is at work in the everyday and I can rejoice in that.

I also saw this illustrated on my spring break mission trip to Salt Lake City, Utah. During the week we were there, our team hiked up to several lookouts and saw incredible views of the valleys, Salt Lake City, and the snow-covered mountains in the distance. It almost felt unreal to be up so high and to be able to see so much. At such a height, it was easy to distance from everything else and just enjoy the view, but as soon as we descended back into the valley, the reality of life in Utah as a Christian became very real.

Throughout our week we were able to have really good conversations with many Latter Day Saints, and other unbelievers. We also were able to hear the stories of four different churches that had been planted in and around Salt Lake City. Each pastor emphasized similar themes. For the sake of the gospel, many of them had left good jobs, and nearby family and friends, to go to a place that is spiritually dark and desperately needy. I was struck by the sacrifices they had been willing to make and the challenges they had endured, but I was even more struck by the faithfulness they had shown in daily following Christ, even in the seemingly mundane things of going to work, getting groceries, spending time with their family, and serving in the church. They were not engaged in some glorious movement that was plastered across the internet. In fact, they told us multiple times that moving to Utah as they had done would not make them be remembered. They knew that they would be and had been forgotten by people and friends back east and they would never go down in history for what they were doing. But they were willing to give their one life in the service of proclaiming the gospel and making disciples.

One day, my group did some doorhanging in a run-down neighborhood. We were putting flyers on door handles for the Easter service of the nearest church. There were several moments where I questioned why I had taken my spring break to come to Utah to walk down streets, climb the stairs of dirty apartment buildings, and wrestle a flyer onto doorhandles, all without interacting with anyone.

However, as I walked up to a house with a pride flag in the window, God prompted me to pray for the door I was walking up to. Even though I didn't know who was inside, even though I didn't have a chance to interact with them, even though I was doing the "meat and potatoes" of serving, there was a chance that the flyer I was leaving might be the open door to attending a Christian church for the first time and hearing the true gospel of grace and forgiveness for sins. While I would never see the impact, God was still using me and that was enough to know.

I was humbled in that moment and realized that where I often wanted to do something to be remembered for, God was asking me to be faithful in the small things and let Him use me to do things I couldn't even fathom doing on my own.

Now, a few weeks after coming back to school and settling into the regular grind of school, with graduation and a new job on the horizon, I'm still thinking about this lesson. I'm thrilled and excited for all the new changes headed my way, but I know that whether on the mountaintops or in the valleys, once I settle into a routine, I want to be found faithful in the everyday things that matter. Spending time in God's Word, working hard, building relationships, loving my church well, and faithfully doing what God sets before me.