The gravel forest service road crunched under my bicycle tires as I continued the slow climb of Rich Mountain. Gasping, I attempted to control my breathing as invisible flames licked the inside of my lungs. Lactic acid surged through my legs, causing my calves and thighs to ignite. The pain caused me to panic and pedal faster, trying to get over this climb. But I learned I couldn’t outrun this effort. There was no other option but to sit in the pain and embrace the suffering.
The Pain We Can’t Outrun
Why do we so instinctively flee from what we cannot change? What is it about discomfort that sends us scrambling for the nearest exit?
I’d signed up for this. Trained for this. But no amount of “hill repeats” in South Georgia could have prepared me for the physical and mental anguish of the almost four-mile ascent up Rich Mountain outside Walhalla, SC.
For two months, I’d prepared for The Holler in Walhalla. I had played it conservative, selecting the intermediate route that was deceptively called “The Little Holler.” It was a 51-mile foray through the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was doable, I’d thought. But as I faced the seemingly never-ending climb of Rich Mountain, I worried I’d bitten off more than I could chew.
“It’s a big hill. Pace yourself,” another rider said to me as he passed me. I could tell immediately that this wasn’t his first race in the mountains. So, I took his advice. I lowered my gear and slowed my cadence. Everything within me wanted to hurry to the top, but I told my legs to shut up.
But why does slowing down feel like surrender? And why does patience so often masquerade as defeat?
Some days after the race, I considered it and saw a parallel: the impulse to go faster while enduring pain is identical to that in ministry. Often, we try to outrun the hurt, but there are seasons where we must simply sit in the suffering.
Waiting on God in the Climb
What if the very thing we’re trying to escape is precisely what we need? What if God’s geography includes mountains not to punish us, but to teach us something we can only learn in the climbing? God uses these spiritual climbs to mold us into Christ’s likeness. Because we cannot fast-forward over the mountain, we learn to depend on God.
Isaiah once reminded weary people that God doesn’t wear out the way we do. He never runs short of strength or insight. Instead, He lends His strength to the ones who’ve burned through theirs. Even the young and strong collapse eventually, but those who wait on Him discover a different kind of energy, an endurance that lifts them, steadies them, carries them farther than their legs ever could.[1]
But what does it mean to wait when every muscle fiber screams for relief? And how do we distinguish between faithful endurance and foolish stubbornness?
I don’t know. But I know this: somewhere on that mountain, between the gasping and the gearing down, between the panic and the patience, I found something I hadn’t been looking for. Not strength, exactly. Not even peace. But a kind of companionship with the climb itself.
The questions remain. And perhaps that’s grace too. We don’t have to solve the mystery to live within it; we don’t even have to understand the mountain to be changed by climbing it.
Maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s everything.
[1] Isaiah 40:28-31
Kevin W. Bounds 
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