Venture Out, Mountain Explorers

I pray you all are enjoying a snowy week. The weather has a way of turning its ugly head and covering us up for a few months out of the year. This week, we received around 8 inches of snow in Tipp City, with slick roads to boot. Today we had a school delay, and this Saturday’s weather might be best predicted with a magic 8 ball.

As I look out my office windows at the white covering the ground, I can imagine how Lewis Meriwether felt as he crested the hill of the Lemhi Pass. Lewis shared this: “At a distance of 4 miles further the road took us to the most distant fountain of the waters of the mighty Missouri in surch of which we have spent so many toilsome days and wristless nights . . . here I halted a few minutes and rested myself. Two miles below McNeal had exultingly stood with a foot on each side of this little rivulet and thanked his god that he had lived to bestride the mighty and heretofore deemed endless Missouri. After refreshing ourselves, we proceeded on to the top of the dividing ridge from which I discovered immense ranges of high mountains still to the west of us with their tops partially covered with snow. I now descended the mountain about 3/4 of a mile which I found steeper than on the opposite side, to a handsome bold running Creek of cold Clear water. here I first tasted the water of the great Columbia River.” Instead of a tributary, taking Lewis and his group east to the Pacific, he was met with the mighty, snow covered, Rocky Mountains. His life, and the way he would adventure had forever changed. This waterway navigating crew would now be mountain explorers.

We live in a world that is every changing. We grew up loving Jesus in a Christian nation, but that has changed. This post-christian world cannot be won to Jesus by doing what we have always done, the way we’ve always done. We will and must adventure out, take risks in our faith and trust the Lord to guide us by the power of His Holy Spirit.

This week we finished the two-part sermon “Stacking Stones.” If you were not able to be here this past Sunday, I would like to invite you take a few moments and listen to the sermon.