We pray for moisture in the desert Southwest, and we give thanks when we get it. But we don’t want that moisture to come as a deluge that washes away roadbeds or a snowstorm when the hummingbirds are already at our feeders.

We’d rather have the warm rain fall softly and slowly, preferably while we’re sleeping so it doesn’t interfere with any outdoor fun.

But even when we get gentle rain in the valleys, there can be heavy snows near the mountaintop.

Staying in the valley is safe, but the views from the top—those can be worth all the effort and even some danger to see. It makes perfect sense that we describe our closer encounters with God as mountaintop experiences.

But to have a mountaintop experience, sometimes we must trek across a snowfield.

Snow can be treacherous. It hides things. All the rocks and ditches that we’d step around or jump across if we could see the path are hidden under the smooth frosting of white.

It can form a thick crust that bears our weight just fine, until suddenly it doesn’t. One false step and that crust can fail, letting us sink deep into the soft snow underneath. Then we must struggle to get out.

But if we stay on the path laid out by the guide who knows where the pitfalls lie, we’ll reach the top in due time.

If the winds rise as fresh snow falls, we might lose any hope of seeing where we need to go…unless we have a guide who will show us the way we can’t see along the safe path that is hidden from our sight.

Jesus is that guide. He built the path by his death for our sins, and he gave us a trail guide in the Scriptures. He invites us to cross the snowfield with Him to reach the mountaintop of God.

What a sight awaits us when we reach the mountaintop with Him!

Sing a new song to the LORD;
sing His praise from the ends of the earth,
you who go down to the sea with all that fills it,
you islands with your inhabitants.
Let the desert and its cities shout,
the settlements where Kedar dwells cry aloud.
Let the inhabitants of Sela sing for joy;
let them cry out from the mountaintops.

Isaiah 42:10-11 (HCSB)

Have you ever had to cross a snowfield to get to the mountaintop?