Travelling in the jungle and climbing up and down the hill is not something new for me. Furthermore I climbed to the top of Mt. Kinabalu before. Finally, by God's grace this time I was able to climb Mt. Murud. I started my climbing from Lepo Bunga with confidence and expectation. I began the journey with a little pride in my heart because I had a lot experience living and travelling in the jungle in the past. In the beginning the path is very dry, but when I climbed higher the path became muddy. I asked myself, 'How come the mud is so thick in the high mountain?' This I never experience before. God reminded me of my pride a while ago. I quickly confessed my sin (of pride) to God and humbly surrender myself to God and decided to give encouragement to my team members so that we can reach our destination together. God gave me extra energy to help my teammates.
After long hours of walking, we reached a junction. We were told that the junction on the right (climbing up the wooden ladder to Batu Linanit) is shorter path, and the one on the left which is very muddy is longer path. So we chose to climb the shorter path. But after climbed until Batu Linanit, the path began to descend and it's getting late. Not sure how far the place is, I began to feels exhausted and felt pain on my knees. Then I asked God, 'Why I need to go to this difficult and very far away place to meet You?' After a while, one Bible verse I used to memorize when I was a young Christian in Matthew 7:14, 7:14, 'But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.' This verse gave me encouragement to move on, finally reached our destination at the valley of Mount Murud, hosted by a lovely couple - Pak Paran & Ibu Martina.
I experienced God in a special way that I never experience before. In the first session, during the prayer, as usual I closed my eyes. I felt there was light shining above me. I felt it was very closed and I could feel it's warmness on my head. I was tempted to open my eyes to look at it, but I didn't. After the session ended I opened my eyes, just found the light is far away above me. The following session, I couldn't control my tears. It was just poured out uncontrolled... I do not know why?
I thank God for His great blessings to me from the beginning until I returned from this Mount Murud trip. God is good all the time. Halleluya!
Written by Welfred TJ Iman