Wednesday, January 22

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Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are my constant guide.

—Psalm 119:98, nlt

If you decided to climb Mount Everest, there would be a long list of things you’d need to do to prepare. More than 200 people have died attempting to summit since George Mallory’s famous expedition in 1922—that is, about 4 percent of all climbers who have made the attempt—so it’s clearly not a task to be undertaken lightly.

First, you’d have to do some significant physical training, not only to get your body ready to climb to the top of a 29,000-foot mountain, but also to make sure your lungs and organs won’t self-destruct at such high altitudes.

You’d also need some specific gear: a –40-degree sleeping bag, a full-body down suit, an ice axe, and various clamps to help you make it across icy crevasses. You’d need some technical equipment too: a radio, a GPS, and a satellite phone in case of emergency.

But the single most important thing you could do before making your way to the top of the world’s tallest mountain would be to hire a Sherpa to go with you as your guide.

The Sherpa are a people group from Nepal who live high in the Himalayas. While it may take an outsider some two months to acclimatize to such a high altitude, Sherpas naturally have more red blood cells than people who are accustomed to lower climates. This enables them to climb higher and with greater ease—even carrying 50- to 100-pound packs from straps attached to their foreheads.

As helpful as a map, a GPS, or any custom-made tool might be, there’s nothing that comes close to having a personal guide when you’re in unfamiliar, hostile territory. Having a guide who knows the lay of the land, who has walked this route before, gives you your best chance for a positive climbing experience—and for that matter, survival.

On this journey called life, with all its ups and downs and challenging terrain, God hasn’t left us to fend for ourselves. He has given us his Word and his Holy Spirit as our guides. He has personally traveled this route before us, and he knows all the potential dangers and pitfalls we will face. He knows the temptations we’ll come up against and the severe conditions that will assail us along the way. And he’s right there with us at every step—showing us the path to take, protecting us, and carrying our heavy load on our behalf.

Guide my steps by your word, so I will not be overcome by evil.

—Psalm 119:133, nlt

When in your life have you sensed God guiding you through a difficult situation? Do your challenges look different, knowing that God personally walks beside you each step of the way?

—Stephanie Rische