Have you ever felt stuck in life? In a relationship? Or your career?

This happens in our career where we feel like we’re just going in circles. We feel stuck in our finances, where it seems impossible to get ahead.  Or sometimes, relationally, we feel like a relationship is stuck, or we find ourselves bouncing from one group to another, never really feeling like we belong. Or at a spiritual level, we feel like God is putting something in front of us, something that is out of our comfort zone, and we’re not sure we want to do it.

We’ll try all kinds of things to get unstuck. Books, blogs, counseling. And all those are great, but what about God?

I think for many of us, we wonder if God cares that we’re stuck. Could God help us get unstuck? I know for myself, I often think I’m so small, and the things that I’m facing seem so small in comparison to other items in the world God is dealing with, but we need to remind ourselves, that He cares for each one of us and what we are facing.

What if, an encounter with God gets us unstuck? That sounds so simple. An encounter with God. But how does that work? How do we encounter God?

To answer that, we need to go to a mountain top. Why a mountain top?

For me, I love to be on top of a mountain. When life feels hectic and stressful or hot in the summer in Tucson, going up Mt Lemmon is a breath of fresh air. The cold weather, the quiet, and peace bring clarity to things. It is refreshing. I feel the same way when I stand on a mountain with a snowboard strapped to my feet. I feel closer to God, and I feel more alive.

Have you ever felt that way?

There is a clarity to a mountain top in life; obstacles feel smaller, dreams, and visions for our lives become clearer than in a valley.

Mountaintops bring perspective.

And if we’re honest, God feels closer on a mountain top than in a valley. But encountering God on the mountain reshapes our reality to live in the valley.

Is there something to that? I believe so.

Very often in the Bible, encounters with God happen on mountains.

In the book of Exodus, Moses meets God on a mountain top, and God tells him that He will use Moses to set the nation of Israel free from slavery in Egypt after 400 years. After bringing the nation of Israel out of slavery, God gives Moses the ten commandments for them on a mountain top. Elijah, a great prophet in the Old Testament, heard the still, small voice of God on a mountain top. Jesus often went off to pray and be alone with God on a mountain top. Jesus gave his most famous sermon known as the sermon on the mount, on a mountain top. When Jesus ascended into heaven, and he gave his disciples the call to go into all the world and make disciples, he did it on a mountain top.

This is important, and something easily missed in the busyness of life.

Perspective in life, getting unstuck, involves moving to a new place (not a different city) but getting away from the busyness and daily activities of living.

We know this, but we keep grinding it out, hoping that somehow, something will change for us.

But what happens on the mountain? What happens when we pull away?

What we hope will happen and what will happen are different things.

We hope that God will change everything at once. He will move us here, change this job, fill our bank account, fix that relational issue, or take that hurt away in an instant.

And for some of us, that happens.

Most of the time, though, God simply invites us to what is next.

We can’t move on to what is next until we encounter God.