Mountains can leave you breathless in a good way, but sometimes they can be intimidating or overwhelming. It all depends on where you’re standing and what you want to do.
For example, Jesus loved mountains and hillsides. He frequently prayed among the slopes, even for long evening communes with His Father. A mountaintop offered Him solace.
Moses trekked to the peak of Mount Sinai and returned with the radiance of God’s glory on His face. To Moses, a mountain top was a place to meet with the Most High God.
King David looked to the hills to elicit God’s help and protection from King Saul on a killing rampage.. Mountains and valleys inspired some of his most famous songs and poems.. To David, his beloved Jerusalem, situated on a hill, was a prophetic symbol. Mountains were sites of refuge, prophetic revelations, and praise.
Sometimes, though, mountains appear insurmountable and daunting, so much so that we gasp in shock.. Have you ever been there? Twice in my life, I’ve been told, “You have cancer.” Those moments were mountains I would have given anything to destroy, and, in reality, that’s exactly what it took to defeat cancer–God’s relentless grace and every bit of courage and faith I had in me.
Some mountains, though large and ominous, are insidious and hidden like the metaphoric “elephants in a room” that besiege us in emotional situations. We try to ignore the obvious and end up protectlng the very things that keep us stuck. Elephants are magnificent, as are mountains, but out of context and God’s ordained purpose, they are formidable indeed.
In one of the most famous scriptures, Matthew 17:20. Jesus tells us that faith is so powerful, even just a speck of it the size of a mustard seed can shake a mountain loose and toss it into a sea. Wow! That’s quite a declaration. But Jesus didn’t teach just to hear Himself speak. He was deliberate and intended for us to take His instructions to heart.
Case in point, Caleb in Joshua 14:10-12 shows us how it’s done. He was 85 years old and had waited 45 years to tackle some mountains he knew were his to overcome! Notice his boldness:
10 “So here I am today, eighty-five years old! 11 I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then.12 Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day.”
Today I ponder that many mountains are inherently beautiful, and many other mountains are candidates for beauty after we climb them. Still others have stood in our way for a long time and won’t go down without a war.. But we need to take a good look and evaluate. Are they in the right context? Are they purposeful or distracting? Empowering or interfering? Are we meant to climb them, deal with them, or declare a faith war to their demise? Or perhaps all of the above?
As always, Jesus’s answer is profound. Faith is God’s answer for handling mountains. We need to respect the magnitude of the weapon that faith is. Surely faith undergirds us for trials, I don’t know how many times my faith in God has given me hope for another day. But to relegate faith exclusively to just getting by is to miss the high mark of its power to CHANGE things.
How’s the view of your life today, especially starting a new year? Don’t forget how versatile your faith is! Perhaps it will help you get through something, and that’s wonderful. But remember how big God is. Maybe it’s time to detonate a problem with a good dose of faith in your big God and His ability to back up your prayer with His infinite power. Maybe it’s time to CHANGE some things.
Nothing, not one thing, is too big or impossible for God, and that gives all of us security for today, yesterday, and all our tomorrows.
Copyright © Marianne McDonough, 2023