O Lord, I thought the day would never come
When I could lay my burdens down and walk with you
Two lines that I’ve sung more times than I can remember. Two lines that I thought I understood the meaning to a long time ago. Two lines that brought a tear to my eye and took the stress off my shoulders.
There are very few places that I go repeatedly to re-center and re-focus myself. One of those places is Elk Mountain outside Lawton, OK. I remember first going there with my youth group growing up. I remember the first time I went back as an adult. It seems that as we grow, places and events that hold great memories from our childhood seem to fade in those “special areas” where we’ve built them up over the years. On my first trip back up the mountain as an adult, I can remember thinking that it wouldn’t be anything more than a mountain. And then I got almost half way to the top.
About half way up the mountain there is a point where I usually stop and take a moment to soak in the sunlight and enjoy the view of the wildlife refuge surrounding Elk Mountain. It’s a beautiful sight…trees, hills, lakes, maybe even some animals. After a brief pause there I continue hiking up the mountain. The majority of the rest of the trip up is covered by trees. The view may have changed, but the feeling hasn’t. Once we get to the top the wind picks up. It gives some of the best views I’ve ever seen…even from higher mountains.
On my last couple of trips up the mountain I’ve had the pleasure of being with two of my closest friends. Each of them know the mountain very well, but one of them taught us something new. On the top of Elk Mountain, towards the back of the mountain, there is a cave. Did I mention I love caves almost as much as I love mountains?
As we climb down into the cave we start losing sunlight. If we hadn’t brought our flashlights the cave could have been deadly. There are slick rocks, deep holes and all kinds of hazards. At one point in the cave, after the sun has left us and we enter the belly of the mountain, we stop for a moment. We had brought several youth with us this time and the “room” we were in was big enough for all of us to be together. We turned off our lights and it was nearly pitch black. The first song we sang was, fittingly, the Mountain Song. That’s when the song gained a whole new meaning and importance to me.
The greatest friend you’ll ever find is on a lonely mountain
The highest high you’ll ever reach is when you kneel to pray
The brightest light you’ll ever see is when you close your eyes
O Lord, You are my first love at last I realize
With nothing to distract from the words, the meaning finally hit me. And it hit me hard. What truly matters in this life? God, family, friends. Taking care of those 3 parts of life is all that matters…why stress about anything else? Turn it over to God. Let him deal with the rest.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” (Matthew 6:25-27)
Father God, thank you. Thank you for not making us worry about every little detail of life. Thank you for caring for us like you do. Please help us to not forget that. Amen.