Return

If you’ve spent any time hiking; especially on longer trails and steep climbs, you’ve more than likely travelled up a switchback. If you’re unfamiliar with this, simply put: it’s a way to make the hike easier, more manageable, more efficient, by making the trail longer. How it works is; instead of travelling directly up a steep incline, the trail traverses across the mountain mostly perpendicular to the slope and at a much shallower angle. After a while the trail ‘switches back’ and you travel almost parallel to your previous path but in the opposite direction, and a little bit higher. This is often repeated several times on steeper, taller mountains. The result is that rather than climbing, or scrambling, and introducing unnecessary risks and exhausting vertical effort; you are able to maintain a steady, walking pace and you still end up at the summit, camp, lake or wherever your objective happens to be.  

The catch, with switchbacks, is that they can feel a little silly, or tedious. You can sometimes see your previous trail, or even two or three layers of it. Walking back and forth across the same hillside or cliff face feels redundant, mundane, and repetitive. In some locations the scenery doesn’t even change for a while and you feel, I dare say; bored with the same view (despite how beautiful or majestic it may in fact be). The mitigating factor to this perspective is that you can in fact see your progress; tedious, and slow as it may seem, you can clearly see that you are higher, further along the path and closer to your objective than you once were.

So it works. 

By the time you reach the next ridge, or summit or viewpoint, you will likely still feel tired from the work that went into the hike, but it is easier to appreciate how much more difficult it would have been had you attempted to travel directly up the mountain in a straight line.

I think this is what we feel when we are wrestling with our spiritual progress.  We end up at a moment where we pause and reflect on our past season and recognize the need to repent, to turn around, away from what we have been pursuing, and ‘return’ to our path towards Christ and Holiness. So we do our little 180-degree spin and head up the path convinced we’re heading straight for the prize this time.

But then it happens again.

We pause, take stock, reassess and find ourselves needing to ‘turn around’ again. “Didn’t I just pray this prayer, or commit to this discipline, or abstain from this habit or vice? Now I have to repent, again?”

“I’m not making any progress”

“I’m just going in circles”

“I’m right back where I started”

If I’ve heard those things, then you’ve heard those things, we all have. 

(They are lies, by the way.)

What if we looked at it in 3D?

What if the upward path that God has us on, is full of switchbacks?

What if each return actually brings us closer to our end goal than the last one did? What if each switchback is in fact a very essential part of the journey upwards?

Is it possible that God has ordained this path? That he has considered our limitations in His plan? That maybe He knows exactly how to get us to where we need to be, despite ourselves? Perhaps our ambition to ‘head straight up the mountain’ is simply our pride and impatience talking.

I certainly find myself frustrated when I travel along what feel like familiar paths, in similar directions, or among repetitive scenery, but I don’t have the whole picture. My perspective is two-dimensional: Up/Down, Forward/Backwards.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (1)

I trust that God’s plan for my life is better than mine.

I believe that I am closer to God than I once was.

I have faith that every time I 

Switch-Back

Return

Repent

That I am not walking back and forth along the same spot, I am not lost, I am not travelling in circles.

I am, in fact, gaining ground. I am higher than I once was. It is slow, it takes longer than I would like, and it’s not the way I would have gone if it was up to me.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight (2)

So the encouragement here, for all of us, I think; is that; 

It works.

Despite how it feels, despite what’s familiar or repetitive, despite what you can see, despite what you may be told or are hearing; if you are seeking God, if you are striving to follow Jesus then:

You are on the right path

You are making progress

You are not where you once were

You are not who you once were

You are not lost

You are being led

You are being guided

Keep going

The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights. (3)

1) Isaiah 55:8-9
2) Proverbs 3:5-6
3) Habakkuk 3:19