Machu Picchu is located in Peru, 7,970 feet above sea level. From the pictures, it looks like a place I would love to visit. It actually wasn’t discovered by the outside world until 1911. There doesn’t seem to be words to describe it.

There are two ways to get to this “New Wonder of the World.” According to Carlos in Donald Miller’s book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, “You can take a train and then a bus, and you can hike a mile to the Sun Gate.”
or…
You can walk along the world-famous Inca Trail, a 28-mile hike taking you through villages, forests, valleys, and mountains. It takes four days and one fit body to make it there. (Yes, you read that right. 28 miles!)

My first choice would be the easy route. I like things easy, as most of us do. But today I’m applying this to my life. I want an easy life, but it’s not turning out that way. I would love the story of my life to be smooth, but it hasn’t been, and I have a feeling there’s going to be more bumpy roads along the way.
Donald Miller talks about writing his story as he faced the challenges of hiking the Inca Trail to see the majesty of God’s creation known as Machu Picchu. But it wasn’t easy.

It wasn’t only the pain of the trail that made you appreciate the city; it was the pain of the landscape, steep in the mountains of the Andes, spiraled towers of natural rock, cliffs dropping for a thousand feet to the river. And the houses, the weight of them and the perfection of their lines, spoke of the many dead Incas who gave their lives to build the city.”

Right now the story of my life is on the Inca Trail. I’m on a 28-mile hike that seems like it will never end, when I’d much rather be on the bus ride that will get me to the city quicker. My legs are tired. The rain dripping through the tent on the campground is going to kill my allergies. I’d love to just sit in a restaurant with a steak and a beer. Why can’t I just wake up and be at the Sun Gate?
Because life doesn’t work that way. 
There are valleys and mountains and cliffs, oh my! There are days we’ll be tired and think we can’t take one more step. But we will. We will scream and fight and question. Then God will give us a push and we’ll take one more step.
Perseverance.
Right now I don’t feel like I’m writing such a great story in my life. But I know that can’t be true. I know it because God’s done letting me take the bus. I knew there was a reason for those hiking boots that have been setting in my closet for the last year. (I wore them out once, but not to hike. I think I just wanted people to see I had a pair.)
Right now I’m hiking. As I lie in this bed, wondering how long I’ll have the strength to push through this day, I’m taking another step through the valley. I just can’t see it yet, but that’s where faith comes in. Believing I’m part of a greater story. A story that no longer involves a character taking the bus.
Miller wrote, “The pain made the city more beautiful. The story made us different characters than if we’d showed up at the ending an easier way.”
That’s true for all of us. That’s true for those of us who feel like we’re never going to get to the other side of the mountain to see the beauty that waits for us. But we’ll see the end differently because of it.
I will appreciate life more because of this hike. I write that now and pray I still believe it tomorrow. My story will be greater because of it. I don’t know what mile marker I’m on. I hope tomorrow I reach mile 28. Truthfully, there are days I feel like I just started the hike and there are others I swear I’ve hiked the mountain twice.
Regardless, it’s making me a better character in a greater story. 
What story are you writing? Where are you on the Inca Trail?