Life Feel too Uphill? Why You Need Your Own Hill People

When I heard our son and his bride hauled themselves out of bed at 4:30 in the morning — that hour apparently designed exclusively for stirring newborns and very loud, belligerent roosters — and they’d swung round to pick up one of our other sons at said bleary-eyed o’clock, only to park at the bottom of about the steepest, most leg-crushing hill in our county, the kind you’d normally drive up in second gear, praying you’re going to make it —- I thought I knew what came next. 

I mean, I could see it. 

How they pulled on their shoes and they ran. Straight up that monster hill. 

But what I hadn’t expected was how they walked back down…. just so they could actually run right up it again.

Now no one would fault you – frankly, it would be completely understandable — if you too asked an incredulous why?!? While it is still pitch dark black, why in the world would anyone do this… on purpose?! 

Just before noon, on our farm’s back stoop, I stop my six-foot-five son coming in from a hard morning of barn chores: 

“So, I heard… I mean — why would you all go looking to run the steepest hill you could find? On purpose?” 

Our boy grins a mile wide: “Oh yeah, Mom…. The bunch of us ran that hill so HARD, all of us, and it felt sooooo good.”

And I read it in his eyes, what every runner knows: 

If you train uphill, you’re ready on race day for whatever goes down. 

You may hate the hills because they’re hard – but therein lies part of the hill’s reward. 

“Hills are more than terrain to endure — hills are training grounds to embrace.“

It’s the hills that grow strength and speed and stamina.  

Stamina with every stride is what keeps you going, and strength and speed is what moves there faster, and it’s the hills that grow all of that, simultaneously.

Lung power, and leg power, are built on the hills, so you have even stronger power for the level. It’s running uphill that pushes your lungs, so you can run faster and farther, with less fatigue. What you gain from hill training doesn’t just stay on the hills — it’s hill training that gives you strength and speed for the straight stretches. Wasn’t it 1972 Olympic marathon champion, Frank Shorter, who once said it brilliantly: “Hills are speedwork in disguise.”

Hills are basically speed and resistance training, no equipment required.  Which is to say: Hills are more than terrain to endure — hills are training grounds to embrace. 

But when you’re mid-hill and your lungs go ragged, your quads burn, your pace implodes, it’s your mind that thinks: “This hill is wrecking me.”

“Hills don’t have to wreck you, as much as they’re where God can remake you.“

But what if the reality is, in some strange way: Hills don’t have to wreck you, as much as they’re where God can remake you. 

Because isn’t it promised, assured and, paradoxically, the truest true: Our light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory (2 Cor. 4:17). 

What is hard can be doing something holy. 

The hills are brutally hard – but isn’t maybe possible – actually, promised – that there is still something good happening on the hill? Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4:16). 

The straining is real – and so is the training. 

Because the thing is: You can have a hill that “produces a harvest of righteousness for those who have been trained by it” (Heb. 12:11). 

The word for what a hill does to a runner, and what God does to a soul, is the same word: Trained. 

The straining uphill is very real – and so is the very real training. 

And yet.  

What I’m tempted to tell my son is that for most of us out here in the brutally hard of real life? 

Most of us aren’t training for some race, but just looking for enough grace to get through the day. 

And our hills aren’t chosen, but arrive without invitation, without companionship, and without any clear finish line – and it’s daunting and exhausting. 

And honestly, as every runner running uphill has to learn the difference between the burn of exertion – that can be an invitation to persevere – and the pain of injury – which can be a warning to stop… so every single one of us has to prayerfully discern the way up our hills. And it’s never our hills that save us, nor make us – but our hills can be where we more deeply encounter the One who is the only One who does both. 

But before I get any of those words out, there’s that story I read that comes back, of how there’s all these runners pilgrimaging from all over the world to run in Iten, Kenya, where the altitude, nearly 8,000 ft above sea level, with its thinner air, forces the body to make extra blood cells to carry oxygen which, in turn, makes the lungs and heart learn to use oxygen more efficiently, which ultimately strengthens the body’s capacity. But what particularly struck me was how: 

“Running is a collective effort [in Iten]… there’s a pack mentality in Iten — runners generally run in big groups. In a crowd, a strenuous pace can feel comfortable; you’re syncing your strides with those around you and focusing on staying on the heels of the person ahead of you…. When you see runners running together here, it’s almost as you see them running in stride and sync. And you just kind of settle into that.” 

And that reality settled into some part of my interiority:  

Inclines are meant to be run in community. 

“You don’t have to be grateful for the steep grade…. but you can be grateful for God on the Hill, and the soul growth through the grade.“

What’s strenuous requires shared solidarity. 

When you aren’t solo, you can settle into the strides for the steep 

And then, it was what Emmanuel Kipruto, an elite runner and coach in Iten, said next about running in community:

“So you: ‘Enjoy the rhythm, forget the pain.’ ”  

That sat with me for a long beat…. Enjoy the rhythm, forget the pain.

And then something within me slowly unfolded: 

Enjoy God, even through pain. 

Because the hard of every hill isn’t about just becoming stronger – but about becoming more like Jesus – who gives you all of His strength to keep going on…. 

Which is to say: 

You don’t have to be grateful for the steep grade…. but you can be grateful for God on the Hill, and the soul growth through the grade.

That’s when I say it out loud, what I’m wondering: 

“What if there’s a way to have your own Hill Party every day?” 

Our son’s one eyebrow shoots up. 

Now he’s the one with his own what-in-the-world question… 

And I’m the one smiling slowly hopeful…  

Because reality is: “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come” 1 Tim: 4:8

What if there’s a way to have your own Hill Party every day?

Because joy is a muscle that needs training. And the muscle begins with your eyes – and your own training community. 

The eye, untrained, struggles and slips — to eye their lane over there, or size up what seems like an easier path over there, or wanders toward setting sights on a different story, a different life, a different path forward. 

And you have to keep asking the Spirit to train your eyes to turn and see the goodness of God in the land of the living and all the steep hills. And that often means you need a training pack, a running group – your own collective to help train your perspective. 

Call it a daily Gratitude Party, or your own Praise Potluck, or call it a Hill Party, but the thing is to just start a daily text thread with a few friends. It’s just a text a day to your Hill Party Collective, with the simple daily rhythm: 

How are you seeing Him on your Hills?

“Focus not on how steep your hill is, but on how to see God on your hill.“

The Hill Party Collective is about more than the texts that read:  “Thankful for good coffee.” But more like: “Thankful for good coffee & how God’s taking care of me in small ways today.”  

More than: “Thankful for tonight’s sunset.” But more like:  “Thankful for the sky going gold tonight & catching a glimpse of God being generous when today felt exhausting & hard.”

Every Hill Party is about just one daily text to your own Hill Party Collective about more than just seeing a gift of grace today – it’s a text about how you’re seeing and meeting the Giver Himself on the Hill.

Focus not on how steep your hill is, but on how to see God on your hill.

That’s the pace of every Hill Party: How are you seeing God in the Sanctuary of Steep Hills? 

Focus on God, not the grade. 

Because maybe: 

The evidence that a hill is training a soul, is not merely that we’re getting through the pain of the steep grade, but that we’re getting to gaze on God, regardless of grade. 

Enjoy the rhythm, forget the pain. 

Enjoy God, even through pain. 

I’ve found myself sitting in more than a few hospital waiting rooms the last several weeks. And as chins trembled, and hearts brimmed and soundlessly leaked down cheeks, there was a lacing of fingers and we whispered the comfort, “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing…He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for You are with me… “ 

Those words are more than lines on a page – they are the presence of God holding us through pain. 

“Our joy can survive our worst hills… because we have the one portion who survives everything: God.“

The steepness of all our Hills is very real, but so is our God’s very real withness and nearness.  

The hill remains – and yet our eyes are trained to remain on Him – not the Hill.  

Texted at the end of the day – to my Hill Party Collective that’s helping train my perspective: 

Thankful that in hospital waiting rooms today, we still encountered His real withness. 

I know what tomorrow holds: more hills. And I know Who holds us on every single one of those hills.

Our joy can survive our worst hills… because we have the one portion who survives everything: God.

Though there’s hard in our immediate story, we are God’s people who can relax because we know the ultimate story.  

It was sometime after our son told me about his Hill Party… that I didn’t just realized it, but I began to feel it, in the uphill and training of everyday:

Putting one step in front of the other … isn’t as hard when you’re with others.

When you find your Hill Party people… even the hills become places where you thank the God of the Mountains.

And there’s this unexpected way of finding your own steady rhythm… enjoying God, even through pain. 

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If Life Feels Crazy Uphill? Strengthen Your Soul With A Gratitude Perspective Shift