The Bible is a literary masterpiece. But it sure doesn’t feel like that all the time. Kat Armstrong is on a mission to fix that. She wants to spark your holy curiosity and help you put your faith back together. No matter the mountain you’re climbing or the valley you’re walking through, you can see and understand the storylines woven through Scripture. It’s a grace to welcome Kat to the farm’s table today…

Guest Post by Kat Armstrong

Dr. Rev. JoAnn Hummel likes to joke that she’d never even climbed a tree before she set out to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. She was fifty-four years old—with two arthroscopic knee surgeries under her caps—when the mission of the Freedom Challenge compelled her to hike eight days to the summit of Africa’s tallest mountain.

I didn’t understand why she would go eight days without a shower or wake up at midnight, every night, to hike for hours in freezing temperatures—until JoAnn explained that her adventure would raise money for the rescue and rehabilitation of trafficked people. She was on a mission.

The sheer achievement and the important cause would have been joy enough. And summitting Kilimanjaro created a lifelong bond among the women in her hiking group, producing stories they will relive until glory. But JoAnn also delighted in a deeply personal experience with God on Mount Kilimanjaro––an encounter forged in adversity that fundamentally changed her perspective.

As you climb nineteen thousand feet up the largest freestanding mountain in the world, the air
gets thin. Real thin. The higher you go, JoAnn explained, the less you can talk because you have to focus on your breathing; oxygen is harder to come by with each step. Concentrating only on the air drawing in and out of her lungs sustained her when the mountain’s terrain felt impossible.

With each labored inhale and exhale, JoAnn began to understand what it means that God is closer than our breath.

When your life feels like an impossibly high mountain to climb, and when you are winded from adversity, Jesus can calm your fears with his nearness. 

I would have been scared out of my mind doing what JoAnn did. When I told her this, she said, “The fear was real, but Jesus was close.” And isn’t this profound wisdom for how you and I can process the fears of life?

When your life feels like an impossibly high mountain to climb, and when you are winded from adversity, Jesus can calm your fears with his nearness. 

He is as close to you as your own breath.

JoAnn set out to climb in solidarity with human-trafficking victims and raise awareness of their plight, and she accomplished her goals. But she also cultivated hope in adversity, a skill we could all stand to develop.

Mountains were the highpoint of the ancient world’s terrain and the metaphorical high points of our faith life too. The Mount of Transfiguration continues to be the peak that takes my breath away, where I feel God’s nearness the most. The Transfiguration was the mountaintop experience where Jesus showed Peter, James, and John how to deal with distressing circumstances––with a glimpse of Christ’s future glory.

I know you might be in one of life’s snowstorms right now, or maybe your story is paused on a massive cliffhanger. Hang on a bit longer. The way Jesus encourages his disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration will bolster your faith.

I know you might be in one of life’s snowstorms right now… Hang on a bit longer.

Six days before Jesus’ transfiguration, he’d been teaching his disciples about his upcoming death. Can you imagine how alarming that would have been for Jesus’ disciples? Although Peter had just confessed his faith in Jesus as Messiah, none of the disciples could comprehend how much Jesus’ kingship was going to cost them.

The cross would come before glory.

Jesus’ actions on the Mount of Transfiguration were meant to help his disciples process the troubling announcement of his death and the intimidating truth that followers of Jesus need to deny themselves and take up their cross to truly be a Christ follower.

One of the ways we grow hopeful when life is hard is to listen to Jesus. I know it sounds overly simplistic, but if I’m honest, I really struggle to listen to Jesus. In my life, his voice gets crowded out by all the Zoom meetings, chattering kiddos running through the house, doorbell delivery rings, and the onslaught of notifications and ads coming my way through social media. Perhaps one of the reasons God positions the Transfiguration on a mountaintop is to move his disciples away from the noise and distractions of their lives . . . so they can pay attention to only his voice.

Perhaps one of the reasons God positions the Transfiguration on a mountaintop is to move his disciples away from the noise and distractions of their lives . . . so they can pay attention to only his voice.

Some of my friends who have been pastored or mentored by JoAnn, the Mount Kilimanjaro climber, call her their “ministry godmother”. Ever the shepherd of those she leads, JoAnn wrote devotionals for her Freedom Challenge climbing group. Of course she did. One of her Mount Kilimanjaro devotionals happened to be a teaching on Jesus’ transfiguration.

Here is her Transfiguration takeaway: Jesus wants to transfigure you.

Jesus desires for you and me to be changed by his revelation and then, JoAnn says, take our “newly given clarity back to the people and lives given to us.”

You probably have a God story or two you retell often when sharing about your faith. For Peter, James, and John, Jesus’ change in appearance would certainly be one such story. I’m convinced those three disciples were transfigured at the Transfiguration—because it showed up in the writing of each of them later in their lives. And here’s what transformed in their lives: They gained hope to carry on when life got hard.

[ Our humble thanks to Tyndale for their partnership in today’s devotion. ]