I Wanted To Stay On The Mountain

You have started to resent your own kitchen, and you know how that sounds.

Three weeks back now. And what you cannot shake is not sadness about the week, which would be ordinary and would pass. It is something with an edge on it, directed at the room you are standing in.

The counter. The particular light in the afternoon. The noise the door makes. All of it slightly intolerable in a way it was not a month ago, and none of it has done anything to you.

And then, underneath that, the second thing, which is worse and which you would not say to anybody. A suspicion that the ordinary is what you are stuck with and the other thing was what life is supposed to be.

That is a serious thought and it deserves a serious answer rather than a reassurance. There is a man in Luke who said your exact sentence out loud on a hillside, and the way the passage handles him is the answer.

It is good for us to be here

There is a moment on a mountain in Luke where somebody says out loud that he does not want to leave, and the text handles him with remarkable gentleness.

And it came to pass, as they departed from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles: one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias: not knowing what he said. (Luke 9:33, King James Version)

You have somebody in the written word who said exactly what you have been thinking, and no version of that scene has ever once had him corrected for wanting to stay. Luke 9:33 records the wanting plainly and adds only that he did not know what he was saying, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that kindness available to a woman in her own kitchen.

Look at what he says first. It is good for us to be here. That is not a complaint about anywhere else. It is an accurate observation about where he is standing.

And nothing in the passage disputes it. It was good. The account we have of that mountain confirms it in every detail.

You are not wrong about the week, and no amount of it having been genuinely good has once made the wanting a fault. It is written that he said it is good for us to be here, and that the narrative never contradicts him, which is why your assessment stands, and the Spirit of God is what lets a woman keep her own true observation.

Then the second half, which is where he goes wrong, and it is worth being precise about what the error actually was. Let us make three tabernacles.

He tries to build something to stay in. That is the error, and it is not wanting to stay. It is attempting to install permanence on a hillside.

You are able to want a thing and not try to move into it, and no version of the wanting has once been the same as the building. The Holy Spirit is the one who separates a legitimate desire from a mistaken plan, and Luke 9 puts the error in the tabernacles rather than in the wish.

And then the phrase the text adds, and it is one of the kindest asides in the Gospels. Not knowing what he said.

That is not a rebuke. It is an explanation offered on his behalf, by the person writing it down. He was overwhelmed and he said something that did not make sense, and the text covers for him.

You are covered in the same way, and no thought you have had about your own kitchen in three weeks has once been held against you. It is written not knowing what he said, added by the narrator as an excuse rather than a charge, and the Spirit of God is what puts that same kindness over a woman's three weeks.

What the kitchen is being blamed for

Now the practical part, and it is about what has actually been going on in that room.

Your kitchen has not changed. What has changed is that you now have something to compare it to, in high resolution, from three weeks ago.

And a comparison always runs in one direction. The mountain has no ordinary Tuesdays in it, because you were not there long enough to have one. Six days is not enough time for anywhere to become somewhere you resent.

You are comparing a place you had six days in to a place you have had eleven years in, and no comparison of that kind has ever once been a fair one. The Spirit of God is what exposes the terms of a comparison a person did not know they were running, and it is written that the mountain was good and that they still came down it.

And here is the thing about coming down, which is the part of that story nobody preaches. They came down the next day, and the very next thing that happens in the chapter is a man at the bottom with a son who needs help.

The ordinary was not a punishment for having been up there. It was where the work was.

You are able to come down without it being a demotion, and no ordinary Tuesday has ever once been the price of a good week. The Holy Spirit is the one who is at the bottom of the hill as much as at the top, and Luke 9 has the crowd and the need waiting at the foot of it.

Now, the second thought, the one about the ordinary being what you are stuck with. Let me answer it directly rather than soothe it.

The mountain was real and it was not more real than the kitchen. Both of them are places God is. What made the mountain feel like more life was that you were undistracted in it, and being undistracted is a condition rather than a location.

You are able to have in a kitchen the thing you actually had on the mountain, and no version of it has once required the place to be different. It is written that they came down and went straight into the crowd, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is as present in a kitchen at four in the afternoon as He was on a hillside.

Say it out loud, then do one ordinary thing

So here is the assignment, and it is two halves in a specific order.

Say out loud that you wanted to stay. Then do one ordinary thing on purpose.

The saying first, and to one person. Say the whole sentence, including the part you have been ashamed of: I wanted to stay, and I have been finding this house hard since we got back.

You are able to say the unflattering half out loud, and saying it has never once made you a woman who is ungrateful for her own life. Luke 9:33 records the sentence and covers for the person who said it, and the Spirit of God is with a woman saying something she has been ashamed of for three weeks.

And then the second half, which is what actually shifts it. Do one ordinary thing on purpose.

Not a special thing. Not an outing, and nothing designed to make an ordinary day better. Choose something entirely unremarkable that you would normally do while thinking about something else, and do it deliberately, with your attention in it, for about ten minutes.

Washing something up. Making one meal without a phone anywhere. Walking to the end of the road.

You are able to do an ordinary thing with your attention in it, and doing that has never once been you settling for a smaller life. It is written that they came down and went into a crowd and did the next thing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in ten deliberate minutes at a kitchen sink.

Because the mountain was not made of scenery. It was made of your undivided attention on something, and that is available in the room you are currently resenting, at any point, for free.

And do not expect it to feel like the mountain. It will not, and that is not the test. The test is whether the edge comes off the room, and it does, usually inside about a week.