Higher Highs And Lower Lows

As I prepare to move to Swaziland full time, I have been intrigued by people who have undertaken arduous journeys of various types in their lives. While the circumstances may be very different, I have found that the approach is largely the same. This past week, I went to hear a guy share about a 6 month backpacking trip that he did, and though his trip was for pleasure in the mountains, there were so many things he said that captured how I feel about preparing to serve in Swaziland. Like when he said, "I have been planning for this trip for 6 months, but it wasn't until the last month that it got really real" (welcome to my life lately!). But there was one line that stuck with me more than any others. He was about 1/3 of the way through his solo backpacking trip through big wilderness areas, when he had the opportunity to talk with an experienced outdoorsman in one of the villages along the way. He said that he had struggled a lot in the first part of the journey and asked the more experienced man whether or not the journey would get any easier. The man basically told him that it wouldn't. He was in such isolated, extreme wilderness that what he had experienced so far would continue to be what he would face moving forward, and he needed to persevere & endure it. So many times we want to hear the words that what we're going through will get easier, but the truth about life in a fallen world where we are sinners & surrounded by sinners is that it won't necessarily get easier. But then this young backpacker, in reference to the big wilderness he was living in, said "The highs will be higher and the lows will be lower." He was referring primarily to the physical landscape, but this truth applies across the board on a journey like this, in difficult and unexplored circumstances, especially when one is traveling alone. And I thought about how true this has been in my experience serving in Swaziland, as well as to what I face in the future - the landscape probably won't get much better, the highs will be higher and the lows will be lower. As I prepare to serve in Swaziland, I know that God has called me to join Him at work in this difficult place, with not a lot of hope on the near horizon, but with eternal hope that is beyond our imaginations. And as I serve there, I will continue to experience higher highs (imagine people having water near for the first time, being provided with food to last them for several days, receiving the Bible for the first time to own for themselves) as well as lower lows (walking alongside families as they lose people to AIDS, walking alongside orphans who have lost parents to AIDS).
Unfortunately, and fortunately, this isn't anything new. Jesus told his disciples,

"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart; I have overcome the world."
~John 16:33

As I prepare to walk through this landscape of the next season of life & ministry - with higher highs & lower lows & a long walk with not a lot of change - I rest in the fact that many have walked in these types of circumstances before me, and found that peace and strength that enables perseverance & endurance, through Christ alone.

"Our struggles were strangely mingled all through life with successes & difficulties altogether."
(John Paton - missionary to the New Hebrides Islands)