By G. Neil Armstrong

            To return home from a long journey, a man must pass over this hill. You see, to go around to the right of this hell, the man would have to cross a body of water that is deep, has vicious undertows, and is known as Shark Alley. Tiger sharks seem to love this spot where the fresh water and salt water meet.

            For this man to go around to the left of this hill, he would have to wade through waist high swamps. This swamp water is full of mangroves and many unseen perils. Some areas drop to chest deep or worse. He could step into quicksand, or he might stumble across an alligator nesting spot.

            All things considered, the man is just far better off crossing over the hill he has come to know as Oh Phewy. All in all, Oh Phewy is harmless enough. It really isn’t all that high. There aren’t any sudden drops or cliffs that he could fall off of to his death. But Oh Phewy is the single most stubborn obstacle on the road to good old home sweet home.

            At the foot of Oh Phewy the man looks up at a seemingly harmless incline. The well-traveled path stretches high and far, but it does seem climbable. As this man has crossed here many times before, he knows all too well not to underestimate the shifty sands of this section of the climb.

            This path don’t have any plants or trees or grass or roots – nothing to grab ahold of and no solid footholds. It seems that it took this man an hour to climb a hundred feet in this soft sand. The man gets a little ways up and steps just so and Oh Phewy, he slides all the way back to the bottom of the hill – right back where he started.

            He spit the dry scratchy sand from his mouth and nose and trudged back up again. This time he sort of hurried up a ways so that he could keep his forward momentum. He peddled his feet in the soft sand and dug deep with his hands but he didn’t get far as he slid down almost as fast as he climbed.

            The pack on his back doesn’t help any, either. Up until now it didn’t seem to bother him, but it’s valuable contents are quickly losing their appeal. Oops, his foot slipped again and down he went to the bottom, where he spits out the dry abrasive sand, and must begin again…Oh Phewy!

            After what seems like a hundred tries and a blistering hot afternoon later, his footing gets a bit more sure and he’s sure the backslides are behind him. He even still has his backpack. Boy oh, boy is he sore all over. His muscles ache, he’s bruised all over and the sand has rubbed his skin raw just about everywhere.

            The path is still on an incline, though and it’s still a long way to the top – he can’t even see the top yet, for he has really only just begun. He knows he can’t stop now, though because the other side of the hill is rocky and too dangerous to pass at night with no light for the path. This hill is way too cold for anyone to sleep on overnight and the wildlife in this area of his journey is perilous at night.

            So he trudges onward with barely a break at all. His mouth is dry and his lips parched. The sun beat down on his sweaty, scratched skin. His sandals have worked blisters into his feet and Oh Phewy; he just got a few sand spurs caught in his toes.

            Ouch! Now that hurt! These tiny balls of a hundred thorns dug into his skin and when he tried to pull one out, the barbs pricked his sand-rashed fingers. He can’t leave any of them in his skin, though. To leave even one of these in his flesh could really cripple him in a short time. Sand spurs can even cause infection and poison a man unto death. So, the man grit his teeth and continued to pull the remaining thorns from his flesh, careful not to miss a single one. He’ll likely watch his step now for sure. This time he was fortunate. Should he have difficulty removing all the thorns, one could grow and engraft into his blood. He could return home one day tainted and in the throws of death!

            The hill got steeper here as he got near the top, but the ground is more solid and there are plants and a few rocks he can grab hold of to help him up. He dare not slip on this steep incline. If he fell now, sure he’d probably live, but he’d surely not make it through the night… not in this wild land – and with home so very near on the other side. No way, he’d better not slip.

            As his achy muscles, sore and raw fingers, parched lips, and burning sweaty, sunburned body mustered up all his endurance and energy to pull him the last few feet to the top – Oh Phewy, a scorpion just then stung him!

             Man that hurt! Good thing it wasn’t one of those big, black scorpions or he’d have been in really bad shape. But oh, man this one was bad enough – and it got him right in his hand. He really needs that hand to get him up the last few feet to the tip. It already begun to swell, and he knows all to well how much worse it will feel if he rests now… so, he pressed on.

            He’s at the top now. Like every time he passed over Oh Phewy, he’s in bad shape, but at the top he can see his home in the distance. Home Sweet Home! But it’s not over just yet, and as close as he is, he just isn’t there yet – he’s here, facing the climb down…

            With his blistered and thorn riddled, throbbing and sandal toed feet, sweaty, sunburned and sand-raw skin from head to toe, muscles achy and bruised, his hand swollen and stiff, he began to develop a fever as he began to pick his way through the jagged boulders and rocks on the rough side of Oh Phewy.

            But it’s downhill from here, and after all, he’s almost home. Oh Phewy! He forgot about that narrow passageway at the foot of the hill – and there is no way around it. He simply can’t squeeze through his one unless he takes his pack off. To make it home he must leave it there.

            All this way, and as heavy as his treasure was, to leave it now would just be a shame. But he’s almost home – he must leave it or die. Oh Phewy! He went home.

            Like Oh Phewy, we all have hills that we must climb. Some people seem to have challenges that are more severe than other peoples’. This is not uncommon. This is also parallel to scripture as man is given a measure of faith. God will not allow us to be overcome if we seek Him. Sometimes we must surrender the very treasure that we set out to obtain. It is not uncommon that we pick up weight that burden us and is not expedient to our purpose for Him.

            In Romans 14 we learn that meat for the might man can very certainly be poison to the vegetarian (Paraphrased and brief). What we esteem as right is right to us, if it is unto faith. Anything that is not of faith is already sin.

            When we trek out into the great unknown so that we may obtain a certain treasure, we must make sure that this treasure won’t defeat the effort. Or, Oh Phewy! It will prove only to weigh you down.