Living or dying in the Death Zone

I used to watch Bible study videos all day and night, but for the last nine months or so I have stopped watching them.  I don’t open my Bible much anymore because there’s no use learning the Bible if GOD won’t let you share what you’ve learned.  I need a platform to share what He has taught me and only He can provide that platform.  So, instead of watching sermons all the time, I'm back to watching mountain climbing disaster documentaries. I've seen every plane crash, boat disaster, deadly train derailment documentary, holocaust documentary, and mountain climbing disaster documentary that there is out there. The only thing I won't watch is underwater cave disasters. I'm far too claustrophobic for that. So, why do I watch disaster documentaries all the time?

One reason is I'm obsessed with death, because death here means really Living in Paradise. I tell people being born here is a life sentence on death row. Isn't that the sad truth? We are born to die.  Isn’t that crazy?  Seems pointless to me unless we do some good between the being born and the dying.  I’ve always wanted to do good, even before I had my first encounter with GOD.  He only enhanced my desire to climb that mountain of life and share with others how to do it.  Second, my life has been one small disaster after another, hence, I like to watch documentaries about people who have had it worse than me so I don't die of overdosing on despair and depression at my own pity parties.

I’ve learned so much about climbing Mt Everest from watching all these documentaries. You see there is a base camp where everyone starts out.  It’s above sea-level and where you spend the most time acclimatizing to the higher altitudes.  That’s like the years we spend in church.  Then as our bodies adjust, we move up to higher camps.  I’m amazed at how mountain climbing physically is the same as mountain climbing spiritually. Higher camps are where we go deeper with GOD.  Each camp requires you to acclimatize, getting used to the thinner air. There’s thousands of people in base camp, but each higher camp has a smaller population of people. The people thin out just like the air because many people cannot acclimatize and they get altitude sickness and have to quit their ascent.  They go back down the mountain, and most do not try to climb it again.  

If you don’t acclimatize, you’ll never get to the top alive.  Eventually, your body adjusts, but the higher you go, the more supplemental oxygen you will need to survive.  It’s not getting up to the summit that is hard, it’s the descent where most people die.  Anyone can have faith as high as a mountain summit, but coming down to help others get up there also is what is so dangerous.  I’m in the death zone.  I don’t know if I’m going to make it back to base camp to show others that climbing and descending is possible.  While on that summit, I had eight children and then I wrote eight books. I did it because I believed GOD could use me by working through me. 

Unfortunately, while climbing, I used up all my supplemental oxygen supply, and I have none left to help me get down.  We can decide to climb a mountain of faith, but it's only supplemental oxygen that will get us up and down still alive.  It’s hard to breathe when you are at the top of a mountain, because the air is so thin.  So too is it difficult to live with GOD at the summit, because nobody is up there with you.  When you reach the summit and spend time with GOD you learn so much about Him.  You learn that the only reason you are there is because He willed you there, and the only way you will be able to descend is because He wills it.  We can do nothing outside of GOD’s perfect will.  If He didn’t will or ordain it, then it isn’t going to happen. 

Believe it or not, we can get up to that mountain top alone, but we need a sherpa to help us down.  Sherpa’s are paid guides who know the mountain well enough to teach us how to survive the unforgiveable climate. The sherpa becomes our lifeline back down the mountain. The storms come in so fast and so furious that you can’t see two feet in front of you.  The wind and blistering cold kill you from the extremities inward.  I’ve got frostbite on my heart and I need a sherpa to heal it and help me down.  If GOD does not supply a sherpa to help me down, then I will die, all alone up here in the death zone. 

To me, the ultimate tragedy would be to get to the top, learn who GOD really is, encounter the storms on the way up and die in a storm on the way down.  No one benefits from what we learned on the way up to the summit or the things GOD taught us while we are up there, unless we are able to make it back down to base camp and share with others what we learned and how to survive. 

If I don’t survive, then nothing I’ve learned will survive.  If GOD chose not to send me a sherpa to help me down, then I don’t know Him like I thought I did.  He knows without a sherpa nothing I’ve done to get up there will be worth a hill of beans.  PUN INTENDED.  So, I don’t know if I will make the descent successfully to base camp to help others, because I don’t know if GOD will send me a sherpa.  Only He knows.