Sermon 5/11/08

Sermon:
One of my favorite passages of the bible is from the book of First Timothy, and it says “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity”. The first time I had heard it was during a camp session in New York. There were only 5 campers, including myself, and two sherpas, and as we sat around a fire, the five of us were surprised by letters from camp counselors that we had had years ago. One of my previous counselors had written that I was never without hope, and that it would always find me, I just have to be willing to look for it. That thought alone has stuck with me during both difficult times and easy times; and it has yet to leave me in the dark.
That summer I hiked up the steepest mountain I had ever seen, and it was almost too difficult for me. About halfway up I started having trouble breathing and I felt like I had no muscles left in my body to continue. I sat down and tried to breathe steadily and a good friend of mine came over and said to me, “You can do this. You can do this because if you quit now, everything you just went through will be for nothing.” The other campers and my sherpa had tried to encourage me to go on, but their words did not hit me in quite the same way that my friend’s had. Thinking back on that now, I can not help but think about the book of Acts, where the people from so many different countries speaking different languages all heard the same words come out of one mouth and understood, breaking through the language barrier. It seems to strike a similarity for me because I suddenly understood all that the others were trying to tell me, I just needed to hear it out of one mouth.
Eventually, I did make it up to the top of the mountain and I am sure I was not able to take it all in at once. I was mystified at how literally breath-taking the view was, and how I could see so much by just being a couple miles up. At that point, I felt the closest to God that I had ever felt, and it allowed me to feel completely surrounded by him. I felt entirely safe and protected, despite the risk of falling off the edge and being in immediate danger. Also in the book of Acts, it says “You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.” (Acts 2:28)
Afterwards, I went back to the campsite, and a couple days later I was home. That feeling of being privvy to the knowledge that God is always around us that I had found on top of that mountain was unlike anything I had ever experienced, and it is a constant comfort to know that it is still there, whenever I feel completely lost or alone. I hope that each of you can go on to find wherever it is that you find that, and never go on to forget that God is still speaking.