The Mountains We Climb

By Anne Bradshaw

The Mountains We Climb is a ten day study about the importance and maintaining the believer's victory in Christ and the roll understanding this victory plays in facing and responding to challenges,  While fear, misunderstanding, and lack of knowledge can at times stand in the way of  all that God has for us, the abundant life promised in Christ is always available and waiting to be received.  Embracing the victory offered by faith can make all the difference. But what does this look like? How can applying victory in Christ to a situation bring about the change we are seeking? Join Anne as she explores these topics and more relating how she personally applied scriptural truth, sound teaching and adjusted her thinking to align with truth and experienced victory. 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anne Bradshaw
• Release date: Feb 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201433048

Anne Bradshaw

Anne’s love for Christ, Scripture and the role of faith has led to a degree in Theological Studies and opportunities to facilitate various ministry/study groups of all ages local and internationally. After 22 years within the denominational church setting, Anne and her husband Jim stepped out of denomination to pursue Christ's calling on their lives. Anne is now enjoying her as a facilitator of classes with an online seminary. She enjoys writing and painting in their home in the mountains of North Georgia with her husband, Jim and two cats, Otis and Milo.

Book preview

Introduction

A person standing on a rock Description automatically generated with low confidence

Iremember this picture being taken. I wasn't very old. We were visiting Virginia and the caverns. Get up on the rock, Annie, and I'll take your picture from there, my dad encouraged. I remember the fear, but my trust in my father knowing best overrode that fear. I couldn't wait to get down, but a sense of accomplishment eclipsed the hesitancy.

Isn’t it amazing how much fear steals when it becomes a measuring rod for decision making?  In my own life, I found it often was the case.  Prepare for the worst and you can handle anything. Was my guiding principle. When applied to risk taking, I would ask myself, what could go wrong? When taking on a new assignment that involved advancement, I was haunted by the thought, What if I fail? How will I deal with that? and If I succeed, what could be the challenges of success and how do I handle that?  It seemed I could never just enjoy the moment of accomplishment or adventure. I was always trying to stay one step ahead with planning and strategy.

Then one day, my eyes were opened. I can’t remember really what happened other than I could see what fear was doing. I do know the defining moment involved prayer. It was at an evening service, and I was being prayed for. I remember the fear gripping my voice as I stood and requested prayer. I do not remember the message given, but I remember that it moved me to simply be done with being afraid. I wanted to experience what Scripture said about freedom.

The speaker that night was an Apostle in the faith. Some would say Apostles weren’t around anymore, but I don’t believe that. I think there are plenty around. There are also plenty of imposters around. I wasn’t sure of this one, just yet, but I trusted Holy Spirit and He said stand, so I did. As I closed my eyes and bowed my head for prayer, I took a posture I had always taken when praying. I remember the prayer touching my heart, speaking truth and there was no false way about it.  The Apostle who had given the message was the one praying for me. As he did, he said to someone standing nearby, unclench her fist. It was just a quiet command and then I felt my fingers being pried open. It was only then that I realized I had been hanging onto something very tightly. Opening my hand was not an easy thing to do. When I opened my hand, something released within me. That is the only way I can describe it. In that letting go, I then received the wholeness and freedom offered in Christ. I would explore this later in my walk, but for now suffice it to say, this was a turning point in my Christian walk. It related to and put to rest something that blocked my ability to receive all that Christ offered.

I remembered later about a dream I once had of entering into the throne room of Grace dressed in a beautiful gown with sand crabs clinging to it everywhere. Sounds odd, I know. What’s ever odder is that there was one in my hand causing great pain and blood dripped down my arm from the damage it was doing, but I only held it tighter thinking it was somehow needing my protection. I now know that crab was shame having taken root. It was burrowing deeper and deeper with every year that I tried to eradicate it on my own. The other crabs clinging was all that had spawned from my shameful experience. Behind it all was fear and unbelief. Fear of being found out and unbelief in the power of Christ to heal, forgive and cleanse me of that shame.  

With the prayer and the unclenching of my fist during prayer, the shame was released. In the days that followed, I realized how much I had missed and how much I’d been deceived by evil to believe all kinds of things about God, about myself.

I don’t think I’m alone in this experience. I thought I was for many years, but when I talk to people, open up about the experience in general, I find most everyone has experienced some kind of shame and regret. Many are able to let it go without difficulty, some, however, like me, mistakenly found their identity somewhat rooted in that experience. It is that misplaced drawing of identity markers that kept me, (and keeps many), from moving forward with confidence. Our identity is in Christ and in Him there is no shame, guilt, or fear because in Him we are whole, forgiven, and free, a new creation without spot or blemish. It can be a long and layered process to get past old issues and bring our soul (thoughts, emotions/feelings, intellect, reasoning) into alignment with truth. This book is about one of many adjustments in my understanding of faith. Illustrating with a recent challenge that was both physical and emotional I will illustrate how I bring my own thoughts into alignment with truth.

Underlying this challenge is the idea of covenant in different areas of life. My understanding of types of covenant relationships, their importance and influence, directly affected my processing of the challenges I faced, and it confronted once again my old philosophy of prepare for the worst. As we prepared to face the Mountain We Climbed, Jim and I discussed faith often, working out the implications of our understanding then and now through scripture and experience. In the past I would have sought to find all of the answers and encouragement on my own, however covenant relationships with Christ, my husband, and close friends, was an underpinning support for the decisions ahead. Prepare for the worst assumes I do everything myself, relying on myself only for all that I need.

How one understands biblical Covenant as God the Father demonstrates through His Son Jesus and then is worked out among believers can make tackling the challenges of life more or less difficult, at least for me.  Covenants humanity makes can be broken—marriage covenants, friendship covenants, etc... If this is all we know, the only examples we have, it brings into question our covenant with Christ. We know the Bible answer is, Of Course, Christ is faithful to His covenant! But if we were to ask ourselves what that means, would we know what that covenant was all about? We know in our minds the answer to the question of God’s faithfulness, but what about the heart? Do we believe in our heart that God’s promises are eternal even though the covenants around us in the natural seem temporary? This dichotomy of experiences can lead to difficulty in trusting God, trusting one another, as well as having faith in Christ to the deepest levels of our Spiritual experience. I believe it is the aim of the enemy of our faith to divide us not only from one another, but also from God, just as the aim of a wolf pack is to divide one antelope from its protective herd so it can be caught. This divide causes the setting of boundaries in odd places typically in defense around wounded places in the heart. Fear in these wounded places can stifle creativity and adventure or create rebellion against and suspicion about what we don’t fully understand.

These next chapters, and studies that follow, are going to be about the mountains we climb and what I believe it means to possess the mountain, the importance and maintaining of the victory we have in doing so. And finally, I want to briefly talk about speaking to the mountains and how I have experienced it all working together toward one goal: Freedom over that fear and misunderstanding that seems to stand in the way of the abundant life promised in Christ.

Day One: Defining Mountains

To begin, let's list comes to mind when someone says mountain Is it like the picture above?  Do you imagine is height, fear, and thin air? Or is it a beautiful and exciting challenge set before you? We did this in our home study and so I’ll be using what we talked about for this booklet as well as some personal experiences that I hope will encourage. Although I'll be using a story regarding a natural mountain from time to time to illustrate my points, the Spiritual Mountain will be the heart of my message. Here