How to Use the Mountain Top Experience in the Valley
Have you ever witnessed an altar call? Those moments at a worship concert or at the end of a sermon when the person holding the microphone makes a powerful speech with emotional music playing in the background. The speaker concludes talking with an invitation to come to the altar and lay your burdens down at the feet of Jesus.
That’s when you see people all around you move forward as they listen to the call of their mountain top experience.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a mountain top experience. These moments can be truly genuine and beautiful. They’re moments when we experience God in an intense, intimate way.
Yet we can quickly walk down off the mountain and return to normal life in the valley. In those moments, do we lose the passion and the awe we once felt on top of that mountain?
From mountain to valley
Many of us have walked through our own mountain top experience. The mission field proves a common place where we experience God in new ways. We see Him working and moving throughout the lives of the people there, and we come home with a new vigor to live life differently, more passionately.
Yet over time we go back to “normal” life. We forget what it felt like to trust God while on the mission field. We forget what God said to us when we approached the altar during that sermon. And we forget the promises we made to our Holy God in the midst of that mountain top experience.
And suddenly, it appears like what we experienced was just an emotional reaction crafted by the situation at hand. Did we really experience change? Or did we just respond with emotions that were not actually genuine for the long run?
God doesn’t intend for us to live in a perpetual state of emotional highs when it comes to faith. The term “mountain top experience” comes from those moments in the Bible when God revealed Himself to people on a mountain. Like the testing of Abraham (Genesis 22:1-19), the receiving of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 19-20:21) and, of course, the transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-13).
But those were all just moments. They didn’t last for years. Some only lasted for mere minutes.
We can’t disqualify a mountain top experience as just an emotional reaction. God truly does reveal Himself to us in different ways, some more intense than others. Some experiences are more calm and rational moments. Not all mountain top experiences drip with emotion.
God knows how our brains work and how our individual personalities respond. So where one person might be on their knees in tears over an experience with God, another might simply acknowledge the fact that they’ve learned something new about God. Both can be mountain top experiences, moments when we see God in a new way.
But if we don’t use what we have experienced on the mountain to affect the valley, then they might as well just be quick reactions to a fleeting moment.
In the midst of ordinary
So what next? How do we come down the mountain and begin living normal life while holding onto what we’ve learned?
1. Process the experience.
This looks differently for everyone, but it’s a step we cannot ignore. If we stifle what we’ve seen and heard and done during those mountain top experiences, then we won’t know how to carry them with us into the valley. Those moments will hide themselves away, unsure as to their place in our routines.
Some people need to journal each moment while still on the mountain. Others need to share with a close friend a detailed description of all they experienced. Still others need to spend time contemplating it all in the quiet of their own prayers.
Processing doesn’t mean we’ll understand each detail of our experience. It doesn’t mean we’ll have an answer to every question we faced on the mountain top. But it will give us time and space to allow the intensity of those moments to sit raw and open as we transition back to the valley. For once we’ve faced them head on, then we’ll have a better understanding of what to do next.
2. Learn how to implant the experience.
Once we’ve processed our mountain top experience, we’ll be able to face the valley without resentment or guilt. We’ll have a better understanding of how that intense moment can fit into our everyday.
Living on a spiritual high all the time would make for an exhausting life, but there are lessons we can take from each moment and implant them into our routines.
Maybe you’ve realized a new passion you have that you can practice in your community. Or you were convicted about something in your life that you now need accountability for from a friend or mentor. Maybe your mountain top experience was giving your life to Christ for the first time at that altar call. Now would be the time to get involved in a church or Bible study. At the very least, tell a fellow Christian about your decision and ask for guidance.
We won’t be able to implant every detail of the mountain top into the valley, but we can’t waste those moments. We can’t leave them behind us. We must take what we’ve learned and processed, allowing it to change us.
3. Revisit the experience.
This doesn’t mean attempting to recreate our mountain top experience. That could prove dangerous and manipulative. What we should do is go back every now and then to the memories, the journal entries, the conversations.
Our moments with God shouldn’t remain hidden in the past. And if we’ve implanted them in some way in our present, then revisiting them will prove a way to spur us on as we continue to live changed. Soaking in the memory of what God revealed to us on the mountain will remind us of our purpose in the valley.
The next time you have a mountain top experience, whether it’s at church, on the mission field or in the comfort of your room — for not all experiences are charged with emotion — know those moments aren’t wasted. Our God is an awesome God, and He loves to come to us in ways He knows will change us.
The question is, will you enter into that change as you walk down the mountain into the valley?