Do you already have your mountain?

Through God we will do valiantly. Psalm 60:12

WHEN Sir Edmund Hillary was asked what compelled him to risk his life to climb Mount
Everest, the world highest mountain, he simply replied, “Because nobody had done it before, and
it had to be done.” Not the 8,842 meters of altitude or the difficulties he encountered (the
blizzards, the blood-freezing cold, the deepest abysses) prevented this man and Tenzing Norgay,
the Sherpa who accompanied him, from doing what nobody had done before until that May 29 in
1953.

What compels human beings to chart a goal and, through great effort and a myriad of difficulties,
persist until they reach it? It is the power of an ideal. That’s how Felix Cortes explain it: “All of
the great men and women who have traveled to space and to the depths of the ocean, through
jungles and deserts, climbing the highest summits and contributing to human greatness, have
succeeded because they had an ideal. This ideal galvanized them to accomplish their memorable
feats” (Un sitio en la cumbre [A Place at the Top], p. 50).

Do you already have your idea or your “mountain” to climb? You must have it. As Ellen G.
White says in her book, Mind, Character, and Personality, “Life without goals [without ideals] is
a living death” (vol. 1, p. 351). You shouldn't only have goals; they should also be high goals, for
that’s what God expects from you, just as the following thought expresses it: “Remember that
you will never reach a higher standard than you yourself set. Then set your mark high, and step
by step, even though it be by painful effort, by self-denial and sacrifice, ascend the whole length
of the ladder of progress” (Ellen G. White, Messages to Young People, p. 99).

Yes, God expects great things from you, which is why He has given you the ability and the
potential to “ascend the whole length of the ladder of progress.”

How high is your mountain? Only you can decide its height, and today I challenge you to set that
altitude as high as possible. With God’s help and your effort, you will reach the summit.