Base Camp

 

To ascend means taking only the necessities and leaving the rest at base camp. Yes, we may have intermediate camps, but the point is that the higher we go the more we leave behind as we behold Him, our dear Lord Jesus.

 

Yes, there are seasons of altitudinal acclimation. New orientations within the Great Orientation of the Holy Trinity.

 

We learn to breathe the Presence.

 

Ultimately, we will not take oxygen with us.

 

But now, will we be sherpas to others as others have been sherpas to us?

 

This is not about “doing” so much as it is about “being” (John 151:ff). A failure to discern this leads us into a consumer religous culture. Yes, being disciples we know disciplines; but knowing disciplines is not the same as knowing Him.

 

We can teach others…perhaps…what to do; but then we’ll ever be teaching them what to do and they will be like deaf people mimicking the movements and facile expressions of others responding to music.

 

O, but to teach others to know and live in the Trinity, for their lives to be organic expressions of the Divine Life; 1 John 1:3.

 

There is a sense in which we can sum up spiritual formation with the statement, “There is only One who can live the Christian Life.”

 

Or we can look to John 15:1ff; but do we really believe that without Him we can do nothing?

 

Or again Galatians 2:20 and 6:14.

 

I wonder if there isn’t a sense in which coming into the world naked and leaving naked (Job 1:21) says a bit more than we think it does. For leaving naked in Christ means that we are clothed with an eternal house, a tabernacle (2 Cor. 5:1). We are leaving all behind at base camp as we are enveloped within His Glory.

 

Consider that for the mountain climber, as for the hiker on a trek, that every pound, every ounce, of gear and equipment becomes more noticeable with every step. Can we not understand that we must not only lay aside sin, but also every encumbrance (Heb.12:1) as we live looking unto Jesus?

 

Once a coworker of mine went on vacation. She asked me to water the plants in her office during the week or two she was gone. Among the plants I watered was an artificial tree.

 

How many artificial trees have I watered over the years? How many am I watering now?

 

What about you?