A Pause On Your Faith Journey

for Matthew, with encouragement I see you as if you stood on a ridge between lowlands and rugged high country. You are poised in thought, your back to familiar scenes as you gaze into a new sky shining over your next trek upward toward an unimaginable summit. That may well your life's pattern: mastering one height after another, drawing ever closer to the final summit. for Matthew I see you as if you stood on a ridge between lowlands and rugged high country. You are poised in thought, with your back to the lowlands, as you scan the rocky heights and wooded thickets below a sky of steel blue expanse. What you are thinking has lifted your spirit higher than the highest peak. How long will you stand between realities of descent and further ascent? An awareness was been placed within you ages ago. It has grown steadily and shapes the man you are becoming. It is bound to help you, it is bound to complete you, it is bound to raise you body and soul to the highest glory. Will you assign a name to this gift of impulse and purpose? Call it Fidelity, and immediately the face of Jesus appears everywhere you turn. Now it is clear: your thoughts while standing on this ridge, between the beginning and the ending of your journey, were prayers. And now... they are answered prayers, because you are ready for the next stage of your mission. This is the moment when pride and humility must coalesce in a perfect balance. Stretch out your right hand and clasp the hand of the one closest to your heart. You two will continue to walk, and climb a common path. There will be others beside you, behind you, ahead of you. It is a community that ascends the highlands, with you as their natural leader.