15 minutes

 "In the last days the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it." Micah 4:1....."The independent spirit wants Everest. The surrendered spirit wants the holy hill." Patrick Morley

For centuries and perhaps beyond, men had a desire to climb to the summit of Mt. Everest, the highest mountain in the world. Countless men and teams tried, but each one ended in failure, and oftentimes, death. That continued until SIr Edmund Hillary with his guide, reached the top of the great mountain. They were able to remain for 15 minutes until the extreme cold and elements forced them to go back down. Years of preparation, personal sacrifice, and tremendous hardship were invested....for 15 minutes at the summit.

Hillary did enjoy renown for some time. Books written, interviews, and celebrity followed. Yet today, few are likely able to say who it was that first climbed the mountain. His memory is further dimmed by the fact that since his great feat, a number of others have done the same. The import of what he accomplished, great as it was, is fading from memory. Such is the way of life. Solomon wrote in Proverbs that there is nothing new under the sun. What we do will either have been done before us, or after. Our "trophies" will always end up in someone's scrap heap. What do we sacrifice, what are we sacrificing now for our 15 minutes of fame?

Patrick Morley writes, "God desires us to live for the world that is coming, not for the world that is going." Jesus said, "What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but (in the process) loses his soul?" Scripture says that when He created us, He placed eternity in our hearts. This means that there is a longing within each of us that this temporal world can never satisfy. We were created for eternity, not for this passing world. C.S. Lewis said that "If we find in us a longing that nothing in this world can satisfy, perhaps we should know that we were created for another world." How tragic then that we invest so much of ourselves in securing what amounts to nothing more than rusting trophies, yellowed newspaper clippings, and our own version of 15 minutes.

Where does your soul effort go? Some invest all of themselves in their occupation, their relationships, their children and grandchildren.....their ministry. They fix their eyes on a goal, on a result. But what happens should they reach it? What lies beyond it? It was said of Alexander the Great that after he conquered most of the known world, he wept, because there were no more realms to conquer. The longing that was in Him, and that's in us will never be satisfied by our earthly achievements. God meant that they never should. All of them together make up nothing more than 15 minutes, a speck in comparison with what is eternity, and all that He has prepared for us in His eternity.

What is the Everest you seek to climb? Could you dare to believe that it's heights, no matter how high, could not even begin to compare with all that is to be realized on the summit of His Holy Hill? I saw a short clip of a few native New Zealanders who were meeting Sir Edmund Hillary for the first time. Where once there were throngs, there were now just a few, and the man they met was no longer the young, vital mountaineer, but a frail old man who needed assistance to get around. I know nothing of the man's spiritual state, but I hope that he, the man who first reached the summit of Everest, has in his heart, reached the summit of His Holy Hill. I pray that you will as well.

Blessings,

Pastor O