I am not. In the spirit of rigorous honesty, I am far too lazy. You have to be strong to do that stuff. It's hard and hurts and, even on an easy climb, it is uncomfortable. Have you ever really observed what climbers put their hands and knees through? Not too mention that it may look brave and cool to hang by fingertips from rock thousands of feet above the ground, but, um, no. I'd not do as well as I'd like to think, imagine and dream I would at heights like that. I also quit doing the whole dancing with death thing about the time I got clean and sober and started living a life worth living. It's amazing how valuing life makes one less willing to risk throwing it away for an adrenaline rush. I don't ride my motorcycle at over 100 MPH without a helmet any more either.
But the beauty of mountain climbing is at the top. It's the view that you strove for, that few have seen from that angle because few were willing to pay the price to see it. Those who truly love to climb actually joy in the struggle. The closer they get to the goal of this or that peak the more joy they feel. Keep in mind that the climb gets more difficult the higher you get. The air is thinner. It's harder to breathe. The trail is gone. It's hanging, and sticking fingers in toes in tiny cracks in the face of the mountain and the smallest holds and ledges separating climber from certain death. It's pain. It's struggle. It's dangerous. They live for it. It is their passion and their pleasure. If you used some machine to carve a path to the top of the mountain and open a observatory that people can reach with ease and comfort and stand in a climate controlled shelter to enjoy the view, true climbers would flee the area in disgust, never to return. That might be when I finally see the top of the mountain, but I would be missing something.
These crazy climbers, of which I am not, understand that ease and comfort isn't the point. There does exist a joy and peace that comes through struggle and hardship and risk. In pursuing relationship with God we are spiritually called to places where there are no paths. It takes effort. It takes discipline, practice and exercise to get into shape. It takes trusting everything to a little piece of ledge that doesn't look safe because God says it will hold and that it's the way up. The elements are against you. It's not ease and delight and comfort and freedom from trouble and hardship like some people try to say and sell. The beginning hills may not be that bad. But the longer you walk with God the higher you desire to go. The hills no longer satisfy. I want to be closer. Experience more. Go higher. And that means bigger mountains. The risk is greater. The air is harder to breathe. Every muscle begins to ache from the stress and the strain it takes to hold on and power up the face of the impossible. Looking around, death is inches away and safety is thousands of feet below.
And in the midst of that is life worth living. In the midst of that is joy. Hanging from near nothing over nothing but death, still far from the goal of the peak, is peace. And in the journey is love that makes it all worth it. At the top is everything, and then it's off to find the next peak to strive for. The next impossible thing God is calling us to do. We've been tricked into believing that joy is the absence of struggle and pain and sacrifice. But I've seen the joy on the faces of those who climb. It's real. And it always seems stronger and more real than the joy of the gamer who just beat the virtual mountain from the comfort of his couch. I can't quite bring myself to pursue the peaks for that joy though. I have counted the cost, and the price is too high. But the joy that comes from seeking God, from climbing those spiritual mountains, has made my life worth living, and I can tell you from experience that if you want true joy, it's not found in finding a way to level the road and remove the struggles. It's found in having God lead you up the steepest climb, hanging from broken fingernails, in the cold, fighting for breath in the thin air and sleeping tied to a mountain and overcoming it all to see the beauty of love from a vantage that those who dodge the pain and are too lay to climb can't experience.
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