At the Top

Waiting for the sun rise at the top
Sandy on Mount Sinai
I was surprised by the number of pilgrims making the trek to the top of Sinai. I was expecting our group of 14 and maybe another group or two. Wrong! There were at least 2 or 3 thousand people climbing the mountain in the middle of the night. The largest group was from Nigeria, but there were also groups and individuals from Japan, Spain, Germany, Russia, Italy, France, and of course the USA. At first I thought about how much better this experience would be if we were the only group making the trek, but the more people I met the more I exciting it became that so many people were seeking God. There are literally 750 steps to the top from the place we dismounted the camels, and they were not easy steps. They are steps of varying height chiseled out of the stone face of the mountain often with the mountain wall on one side and a shear drop on the other. But reaching the top before dawn made it worth the effort. The view was simply breath-taking. I recited the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments. The huge Nigerian group sang hymns, others lit candles and still others just watched the sun rise in quiet contemplation. The scripture that came to my mind in that moment was from Gospel of Luke, where Jesus said, “…the kingdom of God is within you.” I think the Spirit brought that verse to mind as I gazed over the beauty of Sinai and observed people who made the pilgrimage up the mountain in the dark to find God. The location certainly gets your attention, but God is alive and working and speaking in every location, including Pflugerville.