The Mountain

Today Brad and I decided we needed to get away for a few hours so we blew off church and headed for the mountain. Not something we normally do because we hate to miss services at Riverstone but it was what we needed. The plan was to hike up the trail then run back down the road. This served two purposes- first, we needed to run a little and it's incredibly difficult to run down the trail without inflicting some kind of injury on yourself or people in front of you and second, there are some incredible views as you wind down the road that you miss on the trail(particularly if you are rolling head over foot down the trail because you tried to run it).
The hike up was good. We stopped at the top parking lot long enough to catch our breath and then headed back down. There were several groups of bird watchers and photographers coming up the road. We stopped at the overlooks as we came to them as we made our way down. About a third of the way down we passed a few people that were obviously part of the bird watching group but had lagged behind. The guy in the very back came walking up with binoculars around his neck, camera in hand and yelled to the people ahead of him "This place Sucks!" Apparently there was something in particular he was there to see and he was not seeing it. Now in the moment Brad and I thought this was pretty funny but I thought about it as we ran the rest of the way down the mountain.
Brad was talking about how clean and fresh everything smelled, we passed dogwood bushes growing wild-in full bloom, hawks were circling overhead and I wondered how anyone could think this place sucks? It's beautiful and peaceful but if you are only looking for one thing I guess you miss everything else. So then I wondered, how many times have I been the "this sucks" guy? How many times have I been looking for only one thing in particular to the exclusion of everything else? It's exactly what Judas did. Think about this guy who spends what? Like three years with Jesus? Walking, eating, spending every day side by side learning from God Himself- and he missed it? How is that even possible? Don't we always say if Jesus would just reveal Himself to us- speak to us- walk with us...then we could follow Him, do His will, forgive others, etc...? But that's exactly what Judas had and he handed Him over for 30 pieces of silver. How could he do that if Jesus was so loving, so good, so, well, Jesus-y?
I think it's because he was looking for one thing- which was for the Jews to be delivered from the Roman oppression they lived under. Now this is not a bad thing to want- it's a very righteous thing to want freedom. But he wanted this one thing more than he wanted the Messiah. He wanted what Christ would bring more than he wanted Christ Himself. That is a problem. And you see how it worked out for Judas- not well. Maybe that's an extreme example but I know I've done this many times in my own life.
I ask for things from Him that are good and right to ask- but then I set my heart on those things and when He doesn't answer the way I wanted- I am offended, disappointed, disillusioned and I miss everything else He is doing around me...and I would wager to say He's heart broken. I have to choose now to stay offended and nurse my wounds or turn my heart back to Him- ask Him to realign me with His will and His purposes,to gain His vision, to let Him heal the places where I have felt let down by Him, and trust , once again, in His goodness and His faithfulness.
It's hard to do sometimes and it's taken me longer than I would like to admit on some occasions to stop being offended- but I'm so glad He is patient with me and gracious in my times of doubt. He may not always do what I want but He is always good. And if I can just keep my heart set on Him, I will not be the "this sucks" guy anymore.