The Valleys Between the Mountains

We are often captivated by the mountain tops.

We see them in our visions.

The height.
The view.
The possibility.
The satisfaction of finally standing where we had imagined ourselves.

We see one mountain, then another, then another.

A range of beautiful peaks stretching into the distance.

What we do not often see are the valleys between them.

Perhaps that is one of the quietest deceptions of vision.

From where we stand, the mountains appear almost connected.

One peak seems to lead naturally into another.

The picture is beautiful enough to make the journey look obvious.

But mountains do not sit beside one another like a row of houses.

Between them may be valleys that run for kilometres.

There may be steep descents before another ascent.

There may be gullies.

There may be thorny bushes.

There may be ground that is uneven, unfamiliar and difficult to cross.

And from the mountain top, you cannot always see any of this.

You see another mountain top.

That is the strange difference between looking at a vision from the distance and living through it from the ground.

From the mountain top, we see the next peak.

From the valley, we discover what it takes to reach it.

And perhaps the biggest deceit is not the steepness of the mountain.

It is the scenery.

From a distance, the valleys can be beautiful.

The hills are covered in green.

The landscape looks lush.

Everything appears almost perfectly arranged for the journey.

It makes for a beautiful picture.

Until you begin to walk.

Then you discover that the green carpet hides uneven ground.

The beautiful thicket has thorns.

The gentle slope is steeper than it looked.

And what appeared to be a short distance from one mountain to another suddenly becomes a journey of its own.

So are our visions.

We see the business we want to build.

The career we want to have.

The person we want to become.

The marriage we desire.

The ministry we imagine.

The impact we hope to make.

We see the mountain tops.

But vision rarely shows us every valley in between.

It does not always show the seasons when nothing appears to be moving.

The doors that will close.

The relationships that will change.

The skills we will have to acquire.

The disappointments that will mature us.

The discipline that will have to become stronger than our excitement.

The waiting.

The walking.

The falling.

The getting up.

The becoming.

Perhaps that is why some people abandon a vision.

They arrive at the first valley and assume they have taken the wrong road.

They mistake the absence of a mountain top for the absence of direction.

But the valley is not necessarily evidence that the vision has failed.

Sometimes, the valley is the road.

Every mountain top we can see may contain a valley we cannot.

And perhaps we need to stop asking why the journey does not look like the picture we saw at the beginning.

The picture was never the journey.

It was the destination.

The vision showed us where we were going.

The valleys teach us who we must become to get there.

And perhaps that is the part of the journey nobody can fully explain to us.

You can describe the mountain.

You can point towards the peak.

You can tell someone how magnificent the view will be.

But some valleys must be walked.

Because there are things you can only learn below the mountain top.

There is strength that cannot be acquired at altitude.

There is patience that only grows in the valley.

There is discernment that comes from discovering that not every beautiful path is an easy one.

And there is a version of you that can only be formed while climbing towards a place you once saw from a distance.

So, perhaps we should not be discouraged when the vision looks different from the journey.

Perhaps we should expect it.

The mountain top is the promise of the view.

The valley is part of the price of seeing it.

And sometimes, when we finally reach the next peak and look across at the mountain beyond it, we will realise something:

We were never simply travelling towards the vision.

The journey was preparing us to carry it.