April of 2025, something rather unusual happened on Mt. Fuji in Japan. A 27-year-old Chinese university student decided to climb the mountain in the off-season, when climbing is more treacherous. Mt. Fuji is 12,000 ft. above sea-level; the highest peak in Japan.

Things didn't go according to plan. He developed altitude sickness, had trouble with his climbing equipment, and eventually had to be rescued by helicopter on April 22. Now, you'd think that being airlifted off a mountain would be enough excitement for one week, right? You might think he'd learned a valuable lesson about respecting the mountain and knowing your limitations. But apparently, he had left something behind...his cell phone.

So four days later, on April 26, he went BACK on Mt Fuji, attempting to retrieve his phone. And again, he got into trouble. AGAIN, he developed altitude sickness. And AGAIN, emergency responders had to rescue him from the mountain! Twice in four days, from the same mountain, all over a cell phone!

It's an almost unbelievable story, but it raises a question: What good is being rescued if you simply go right back to the thing that put you in danger in the first place? And as crazy as that story sounds, I wonder if we sometimes do something very similar in our relationship with God. We cry out to Him when we're in trouble. We ask Him to deliver us from the consequences of our choices. We rejoice when He answers our prayers. But sometimes, once the crisis has passed, we go right back to living the way we were living before. And then we wonder why we keep finding ourselves in trouble!