Upward.  It’s a direction that’s stamped indelibly on our human souls.  There is a relentless draw to move upward—both physically and spiritually.  In fact, we take journeys in life designed to move us in this direction—designed to take us to a higher plateau.

My own recent journey to Estes Park, Colorado, reminds me powerfully of this truth.  As I travel westward from Arkansas, I leave my home elevation, a humble 440 feet above sea level.  At my overnight stop in Kansas, after the first day’s drive, I find myself at just over a thousand feet above sea level—more than double my starting point, but still an insignificant figure compared to what lies ahead. 

During the second day of travel, the altitude gain becomes even more intense.  When I reach Kanorado, the hybrid-named town on the border between Kansas and Colorado, I have risen to almost four thousand feet.  As I enter Denver, I notice colorful signs welcoming me to the “Mile High City,” because Denver sits 5,280 feet—exactly one mile—above sea level.  Yet even here, where the elevation is so dramatic that adjustments must be made in following recipes and water turns to steam at a temperature ten degrees lower than its standard boiling point, my journey upward is not over.  At the city limits of Estes Park, my elevation is a precise 7,522 feet.

If your head is already spinning from the thought of these elevations, buckle your seatbelts.  While my “base camp” may be between 7,000 and 8,000 feet, that doesn’t take into account the fact that Estes is nestled in a valley—a high one, to be sure, but a valley all the same.  During my hiking expeditions, I routinely ascend to over ten thousand feet!  And when I travel to the other side of the national park, from Estes Park to the town of Grand Lake, I reach the ultimate apex—Trail Ridge Road.

Trail Ridge Road is the sole route across the national park, a well-loved icon for surrounding residents, and the highest continuous paved road in the United States.  Its forty-eight serpentine miles provide a driving experience that is interesting to say the least, because the road has steep grades, sharp turns, and best of all, no guardrails.  Closed from late September to late May or early June due to heavy snows, the road requires several weeks of intensive plowing before it can be made available for public use.  Trail Ridge, however, is more than just a route to Grand Lake or a scenic jaunt through the mountains or a daredevil driving experience.  It’s a gateway to another world—the world of twelve thousand feet elevation.

And this is where facts and figures break down.  Twelve thousand feet is impossible to understand.  It doesn’t fit into the framework of our minds, especially if, like me, you live in lower elevations.  Twelve thousand is just an abstract number dangling far above our heads…until you’ve stood on the spine of the Rockies with the world laid out at your feet and felt the glory sweep over you. 

Twelve thousand feet.  Incredible, right?  It’s an elevation that can’t be matched.  Every time I visit Colorado, I never miss my chance to travel across Trail Ridge Road and feel that top-of-the-world dizziness for myself.  And all around me on the road will be multitudes of other visitors seeking that same experience.  Because in this world, twelve thousand feet is where we all want to be.

No, we don’t all flock to Colorado and hang out on the tiptops of the mountains, but look around you, and you’ll see a world obsessed with height.  Our culture tells us that life is a collection of Kodak moments, of mountaintop experiences, and that these are the things to be lived for.  And as a result, we have become a society enamored of altitude—a people convinced that only in climbing higher and higher can true success be found.  Our attention is captivated by the sparkling moments, the Big Events that earn a place in a photo album or a mental milestone in the landscape of our mind.  It’s easy to see why.  These events provide an emotional boost, filling our souls with the taste of victory.  But what happens when the moment ends?

Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with mountaintop moments.  Such milestones as weddings, births, anniversaries, or holidays should be celebrated and honored.  Moments of euphoria, of elation over a goal faced and conquered, are beautiful things.  The problem arises not when we enjoy these moments, but when we idolize them, or worse, anchor our mindsets to them.  If we’re not careful, it becomes all too natural to rush from mountaintop to mountaintop, scrambling for the next big thing to give us a jolt of elevation.  But with this mindset, we unwittingly choose a shaky foundation for our lives—fickle emotions that must be constantly inflated. 

In real life, just as in mountain climbing, we can’t simply bungee-jump from peak to peak.  Nor would we want to, because it is actually in the valleys that life happens.  Sure, the twelve-thousand-foot moments are exciting, but they are the dessert of a life, not the main course.  The main course—as uninspiring and drab as it may sound—is the valley.  And without the valley, the mountaintop would never be possible.

I discovered this firsthand last month when, after years of hard work and prayer, I graduated from college.  The day of the commencement ceremony when I flipped my tassel and received my diploma was a twelve-thousand-foot experience for me, as exhilarating as any moment on Trail Ridge Road.  However, I didn’t magically arrive at that destination.  There was no shortcut, no quick fix to negate the late nights spent studying, or the tears shed, or the prayers prayed.  The mountaintop was glorious, but the journey—the growing, the becoming, the traveling—didn’t take place there. 

It happened in the valley.

Some people never realize this truth.  They struggle to live their entire lives at twelve thousand feet, ignoring the valleys altogether and grabbing at anything to bolster their altitude and provide them with the excitement they crave.  Other people wisely recognize the fact that they can’t maintain their elevation, but the knowledge provides only despondency.  When they compare their quiet lives with the glittering high-altitude tabloids of celebrities (or even their own social media connections), they become convinced that they are somehow failing, and in the troughs of mundanity, they wallow in a restless discontent and even question the validity of their faith.  They fail to realize that at times, Christians may not feel happy or successful or victorious or even very spiritual.  We are not always standing on the mountaintops.  But neither are we supposed to.

That’s why it’s time for us to step back—or maybe even step down.  Time for us to break free from the addiction to the peak that our society emphasizes.  Because here’s the truth about high altitude—it can kill.

Yes, it’s fun to stand at Medicine Bow on Trail Ridge Road and look out over the endless mountain ranges.  It’s fun to consider how high you are, how far removed from the lower valleys of daily life.  But I could never live there.  And if I tried, if I dug in my heels at twelve thousand feet and refused to return to the valley, the experiment would be deadly.

Look again at the photo from the tundra region of Trail Ridge.  Do you notice something?  No trees.  Somewhere between 11,000 and 12,000 feet, conditions are too harsh to support a forest environment.  As you ascend Trail Ridge Road, the noble giants of the lowland forests turn to dwarfed and shriveled shrubs and finally disappear completely.  The soil is usually frozen within a few inches of ground level (a phenomenon known as permafrost), and winds routinely in excess of 80 miles per hour, with gusts to over 170 miles per hour, not only freeze delicate vegetation but also dehydrate the leaves beyond the point of survival.  Thus, the botanical roster of the tundra is limited to lichens, mosses, and tiny dwarf plants with special designs to combat these conditions.

Where trees can’t live, people can’t either.  Visitors to the tundra are in danger of many serious conditions, such as extreme sunburns that develop within mere minutes, frostbite even in July, and a dreaded condition known as altitude sickness, in which the body becomes unable to cope with the lack of oxygen in the thinner air, leading to dizziness, nausea, fatigue, weakness, confusion, headaches, and, if left untreated, death. 

Yes, the mountaintop is wonderful.  It’s a special kingdom all its own and an amazing destination to visit.  The keyword is just that—visit.  The tundra is beautiful, but deadly.  It’s a good place for an afternoon excursion but a terrible site for a permanent abode. 

And the same rule applies to the high places in our lives.  It’s so easy to become addicted to that feeling we get from being at “twelve thousand feet.”  It’s devastatingly simple to become a professional altitude chaser, leaping from platform to platform in an attempt to squeeze a few more drops of power.  But that’s not how God designed us to live.  If we give in to this urge, we’ll spend our lives in a frantic search for temporary excitement that will always fizzle out and leave us gasping for air.  The mountaintop experiences are glorious, no doubt, and they’re completely necessary for our spiritual health.  But they are a means, not an end.  The next time you find yourself craving that excitement, stop and remind yourself—twelve thousand feet can be a scary place.  Then look around you, and realize the joy and the peace and the blessings that are here, right now, just waiting to be found.

We are not designed to spend our lives living on mountains.  Instead, we’re designed to hike through the valleys…engaging our muscles, expanding our lungs, growing and maturing and becoming and learning.  Every now and then, we reach a crest, and we pause for a well-deserved moment of elation.  We scan the treacherous terrain we’ve already crossed, and we rejoice.  But then we look ahead—to the next mountain. 

And we leave twelve thousand feet, with its beauty and excitement and its deadly seduction.  We plunge downhill, into the valley.  Soon we’ll be below the tree line, and we’ll have to cling by faith, not sight, to those glories we glimpsed from the high place.  But we’ll stand at twelve thousand feet again.  And when we do, when we summit that next mountain before us, we’ll be stronger and braver and better. 

Did you enjoy this post? What are some ways you’ve learned through the valleys? Let me know in the comments! Also, if you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe and share this post with your friends!