Verse:
“Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. ”
Thought:
It had been quite some time, with the weather on the cold side and a hard
top on the Jeep, I had not gone for a drive with the top down since late Fall. Last
week everything changed. Scheduled to go to a conference just outside of Austin, on Lake
Travis, the change in scenery not only tempted me to switch tops, but to let the top down
and enjoy not only the stay at Lake Travis, but the drive as well. Amazed by the difference
in terrain, the Texas mountains, the Colorado River and the curvy roads something
happened. I escaped. I escaped the chaos of the day to day, the urgent and the mundane.
It was during this escape that it happened, and it happened not in the rush, in the excitement
or the busyness, but in the margins of life, there was God.
Hear the Good News, God wants us to and calls us to encounter Him, not occasionally, but each
and everyday. He wants us to recognize His presence and calls us to focus and recharge with
Him. Each day, at the end of the day, Jesus would get away and focus everything that made up
the day, the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly towards God. The urgencies, stresses,
distractions and challenges of each day would be placed before God. It was during this time
Christ would escape the chaos of life and encounter God. We too are called this experience
with God, but our challenge is how to escape. For most of us, to escape means to take some
type of trip or vacation, and those come to few and too far between. When we do finally escape
the prospect of returning begins to weight heavily upon us and the end of the escape loses some
of it's significance. We want to stay where we are, soaking up the experience. This is where
we find the disciples in the passage above. They witness the Transfiguration of Christ and
find a new connection with God, with Christ and with themselves. The great ah-ha moment. The
disciples want to stay, soaking up the new experience of God. But friends, we need to understand
the purpose and significance of our mountain-top escapes. Yes, it is meant for us to escape
the chaos of life, and yes we are to connect with God, but it is so we will make the journey
back down into the valley. We are to return to feed others as we have been fed, we are to
engage others as we have been engaged, and frankly to serve. You must see and recognize that
in the valley, we find the wildlife, the floods and the fires, but we also find the fertile
ground, the crop, and the harvest. We feed ourselves to meet a hunger and to serve as fuel.
As a Church, a body of faith, we are to use the fuel God provides to reach out and to make a
difference. We are to mature in our faith and allow God to nurture our faith and our very
being. To grow in such a way, we must leave the mountain and return to the people.
The next day, after the Transfiguration, Christ and the Disciples returned to the people,
the crowd and resumed their ministry. Austin was great, but it is not home, nor is it where
I am supposed to be. Wednesday evening it was time to go home.
Prayer:
Gracious God, rest is what You bring and offer. You recharge my soul and strengthen me for what is ahead of me. Help me, I pray, to face each day with Your grace and empowerment, enabling me to be Your Servant. Thank You for all You have done in my life and all You will continue to do, for I come to You through Jesus Christ, my Lord, my Savior! Amen.
Grace & Peace
David Banks
If you would like to receive this by e-mail, please visit Please add me
If you would like to discontinue receiving this e-mail, please visit Please remove me