Everybody, Always

toward the cloud-covered mountaintop and asked, “Doesn’t that look
awesome?” I looked at him and just shook my head. I wanted to hurl. The
mountain is 19 , 341 feet tall, and we were at the bottom of it. Actually, I
was standing in a ditch at the time, so that made it three feet taller. I
asked around to find out how the mountain got its name. I figured there
was a reason it had the word kill in it. Because it’s the tallest mountain in
Africa and covered in snow at the top, it turns out people sometimes die
trying to climb it.
Charlie, a couple of friends, and I started hiking up the mountain
behind our guide. People have asked me what the views were like going
up Kilimanjaro. I’ve told them I don’t know. The whole way up, I just
kept my eyes fixed on the guide’s boots and never looked up. A few times
he went over a rock when I would have rather gone around it. But if he
went over it, I went over it. Other times he went around a rock I would
have rather gone over. But if he went around it, I went around it too.
Here’s what I learned: when you’ve got a guide you can trust, you don’t
have to worry about the path you’re on. It’s the same lesson I’ve been
learning about Jesus. I’m just trying to follow love’s lead.
We walked for forty miles to the top of the mountain and down again,
and the guide never tripped once. By contrast, it seemed I tripped every
three or four steps. But do you know what happened every time I tripped?
I just bumped into the guide again. Even though it happened often, the
guide never turned around and gave me the hairy eyeball or told me to get
my balance. He just knew I was following him closely. I think Jesus feels
the same way about us. We’re all going to trip as we try to follow Him
through the difficult terrain of our lives. But when we do, we’ll bump into
Him all over again. Following Jesus means climbing, tripping, dusting
ourselves off, and climbing some more. Faith isn’t a business trip walked
on a sidewalk; it’s an adventure worked out on a steep and sometimes
difficult trail.
I was in a big hurry when we started climbing Kilimanjaro. It was a
mixture of fear and excitement and the buzz from downing a half-dozen