Called to the Mountain

By Lisa Potter

Several years ago, I attended a prayer retreat for women leaders. At the end of the opening session, the director encouraged us to find a place for contemplative prayer and listening. I’m a floor sitter—I feel closer to God when I am closer to the ground. I sat on the floor for a long time while simply listening, tuning my heart and ears to hear what the Spirit seemed to impress on me for that moment.

It appeared as if a long time had passed when I felt impressed to pick up my Bible, journal and pen. I could tell that the Spirit wanted to share a message.

As I listened, I turned to Psalm 68:11, a new scripture for me: “The Lord announces the Word, and the women who proclaim it are a mighty throng.” I thought, “Where has this scripture been all my life?” What happened next remains significant to my purpose and calling. In my prayerful listening I heard, “God is preparing a mighty army of women who are full of the Spirit: warriors, prophetic voices, worshippers, trumpeters, grace-givers, bridge-builders, joy-givers, restorers of hope, dreamers, apostles and entrepreneurs (women who will birth new things).”

As I reviewed the list of what this mighty army of women would look like, I prayed about what it meant for me. As I began to speak publicly at various places, I would share the prayer retreat story and pray over the women. God continues to raise up the mighty army of women full of the Spirit. God draws us to open our hearts, eyes and ears to the talented and gifted women around us—in families, churches, and communities.

Why am I telling you this story? You are a part of that mighty army as well. God has created you as an individual to do something I could never do, to go somewhere I cannot go. He has equipped and empowered your purpose and design; thus, “your deepest longing should be to be alive with God, to become the person God made you to be, and to be used to help God’s world flourish.”¹

This type of flourishing does not happen without asking God for your mountain. When we ask for the Spirit of God to use us, we invite risk, pain and the unfamiliar to change us. Growth happens when He nudges us to move away from the comfortable places and step out into the unknown or begin the ascent up the mountain.

When Moses sent the 12 spies out to survey the land, Joshua and Caleb were the only two who came back full of faith, saying, “We can do this!” The other 10 were ready to go back to Egypt and become slaves again. After the venture to spy the land, Caleb lived a long and full life. He climbed many mountains in his old age, and “as his generation all died out, he had to develop a whole new circle of friends as an older man. He became mentor, guide and cheerleader for an entirely new generation, and he did it to such an extent that they all said they wanted 85-year-old Caleb to lead them when they went to the hill country.”²

While we venture into a new place, a start, a fresh beginning, God waits for you at your mountain; however, “your mountain will not look exactly like anyone else’s. But often you will recognize it because it lies at the intersection of the tasks that tap into your greatest strengths and the needs that tap into your deepest passions.”³ We go to our mountains together, not alone, but with a community of sisters cheering for one another.

To begin the individual and collective journey, I ask you to consider taking a journey on a 12-hour prayer retreat to listen and rest. I have shared with you the outcome of one of my listening retreats (Psalm 68:11), so expect God to speak to you.

Personal prayer retreating was not a discipline in my life until several years ago when I started on a one-year leadership investment intensive with Alicia Chole. The mentoring group met at Rivendell in Branson, Missouri, January 2015, for a three-day prayer retreat intensive. The first day proved disastrous because my task-oriented mind would wander back and forth from God and my “to do” list. The next day, admitting defeat to the group, I decided to start again. The end resulted in a wonderful time invested in nearness with Jesus. Since then, I have practiced prayer retreating regularly in my life and leadership journey.

Alicia Britt Chloe states in her book Ready Set Rest: The Practice of Prayer Retreating, “When I first started the discipline of prayer-retreating, I thought of it as a luxury. Now, this Jesus-inspired habit of intentionally investing in extended time of prayer is a guarded given in my journey. Imagine, oh, imagine, how the future could be impacted by a generation of leaders whose public presence was anchored in spiritual rest.”4

Sabbath and rest are another aspect of prayer retreating. I define sabbath rest as “life-giving.” Sometimes during my sabbath and prayer retreats, I most need rest. At that time, the most spiritual thing I can do is take a nap.

Sabbath days for me often turn into a creative activity of restoring a piece of furniture or decorating a new area of my home. Other times I take a bike ride, hike or walk along the beach. The key is to allow time for prayer, listening and Bible reading, and to do something that will bring additional life to your soul.

When I reflect about my ministry years from Bible college to the present, I think of the things required of busy leadership life and rearing a family. The words soul care, spiritual retreats and renewal had been foreign to my vocabulary. It took 28 years and a transition from local church ministry to district leadership before I realized the unhealthy state of my soul and the driving ministry motives. Arriving in this new season placed the ministry expectations on my husband, leaving little for me and allowing the state of my soul to stare me in the face.

Two years into the new leadership transition, a cancer diagnosis, the loss of my brother—I was floundering. I decided to invest in a one-year mentoring cohort with Alicia Chole and decided to go back to school and get a master’s degree. These two avenues of new direction and study opened me up to the idea of prayer retreats and sabbath rest. During one of the prayer retreats, I took along the advent book, The Greatest Gift, by Ann Voskamp, which provided me some fresh perspective on what actually matters: “The mattering part is never what isn’t. The mattering part is never the chopped off stump. It isn’t what dream has been cut down, what hope has been cut off, what part of the heart has been cut out. The tender mattering part is—you have a tree.”⁵

God reminded me that I could elaborate on the cut-down tree, the pain and its root, or I could recognize that I have a tree. Challenged to reflect on past and present ministry as a tree, I have many different trees represented in my journey. I noticed barren trees, new blossoming trees, trees full of fruit and trees of changing colors. The cycle of seasons continues over many aspects of ministry. Each tree remains full of purpose, whether it is barren or blossoming with much fruit. In stillness and quiet tears, I allowed this peace to encompass my spirit.

Through this new season, my tree didn’t feel sturdy or full. The season was barren, and I had to give up much, causing the tree to lose its leaves. There my ministry tree stood barren in winter, walking me through depression, cancer and grief. This barren tree stayed for three years, allowing me to die to self, my high expectations, my drive to perform and task orientation.

In spiritual journeys, however, winter does not last forever. Spring arrives, and with its arrival new blossoms emerge. This represents my current ministry journey. A new season has come, and everything on which I embark provides a new place for planting.  

Psalms 1 and 139 powerfully illustrate the point: “You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain” (139:5,6). Psalm 1:3 says, “He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.”

The two Scripture references speak of a balance between productivity, soul care and self-care. Prayer, resting and relaxation remain vital to the life of the leader, along with careful attention to the body, soul and mind.

This truth is illustrated even in the life of Jesus, as recorded in Luke 5:15-16: “Yet the news about Him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses, but Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”

The opposite of brokenness, of course, is wholeness. Peter Scazzero poignantly observes the impact personal wholeness has on leadership: “When we devote ourselves to reaching the world for Christ while ignoring our own emotional and spiritual health, our leadership is shortsighted at best. At worst, we are negligent, needlessly hurting others and undermining God’s desire to expand His kingdom through us.”⁶ For this reason, creating healthy connectivity with God, ourselves and others remains imperative.

In his book, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey toward an Undivided Life, Parker Palmer uses a blizzard analogy to explain the chaos of life and the connection with the survival of our soul. He says that in a blizzard, the farmers would tie a rope from the back door of the house to the door on the barn so they would not get lost and freeze to death during a whiteout.

It is this way with the chaos of life and the care of our soul. We need to tie a rope between our soul and God, between our soul and others, so we can survive the blizzard: “When we catch sight of the soul, we can become healers in the wounded world—in the family, in the neighborhood, in the workplace and in political life—as we are called back to our ‘hidden wholeness’ amid the violence of the storm.”⁷

At the end of Moses’ life during one of his last leadership “hurrahs,” we see him on the highest peak at Mount Nebo, where God led him to survey the Promised Land one last time. Scripture says he was 120 years old, but his vigor was unimpaired (see Deuteronomy 34:7). He could still climb mountains.

Why would I talk about the end when we are at the beginning of our collective journey? We often think finishing well has everything to do with endings. But finishing well as leaders has everything to do with our ability to spiritually climb mountains: “Life is not about comfort. It is about saying, ‘God, give me another mountain.’”8

Let’s live the adventure that God has planned for us and flourish in life and leadership. You’re not alone on your mountain journey. It’s a collective journey, and we will go together as a band of explorers ready for what God has for each one of us. The best part, though, is that God waits for you at your mountain. He will not leave you alone in the journey but walks beside you the entire way.

Notes:

1. John Ortberg, The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God’s Best Version of You (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2010), 254.
2. , 250.
3. , 252.
4. Alicia Britt Chole, Ready Set Rest: The Practice of Prayer Retreating (Rogersville, Missouri: Onewholeworld, 2014), 1:44.
5. Ann Voskamp, The Greatest Gift, Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2013), 4.
6. Peter Scazzero, “The Emotionally Healthy Leader,” Influence Magazine, December 2015–January 2016, 41,42.
7. Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Toward an Undivided Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004), 43.
8. Ortberg, The Me I Want to Be, 252.