Myrtle Harris knows all about stepping out in faith. Myrtle was diagnosed with cancer. She had surgery to remove the cancer, but she was still weak. Everyday tasks were completed with great difficulty, and they sapped all of her strength. Her strength was returning but ever so slowly.
One August she and her husband were hiking two and a half miles up a mountain to a small log teahouse. The going was tough. Just past the half-way point they stopped to rest beside a lake. A younger couple greeted them. The younger couple advised them to turn around and go back down the mountain. They would never make it to the top. The path was too difficult.
Myrtle and her husband decided to rest for awhile and then continue up the mountain. Breathing heavily, they climbed slowly upward. Young hikers swung past them as if it were nothing. “Pausing frequently and praying silently,” Myrtle said, “we reached the teahouse at last.”
The view from the top of the mountain was marvelous. Lakes, trees, rocks, waterfalls, and cloud-caressed mountaintops set their souls singing with praise and thanksgiving. Myrtle says, “There are many kinds of mountains we must climb during a lifetime. Our faith in a caring God will encourage us to take that first step and all the other steps after that.” *
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* Cited in Paul W. Powell, BASIC BIBLE SERMONS, (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press, 1992).