When The Mountain Won’t Move

“But even if he does not…” Daniel 3:18

Photo: Renae Bowman

Photo: Renae Bowman

Oh I like day hikes! They bring peace and pleasure to my weary soul—something about trekking around in God’s creation.

However, it’s been a tough year for me in the whole walking realm. An injury, a surgery and the recovery kept me down and indoors.

But I’ve slowly recovered.
I’m moving the needle forward.

A few weeks ago the hubby and I hit a nearby mountain trail; I was super excited. It was a first in a very long time.
I knew it was going to be tough. I’ve done it before. You have to work hard at getting to the top. It takes awhile.

We stopped. A lot.
My lungs were burning.
My legs were burning.

My husband said at least a hundred times, “Let’s stop and go back. It’s no big deal. You’ve done great.”

It was a big deal…to me!
It had to do with much more than hiking up a mountain.

But somewhere between the slower steps and looking up at the summit, I knew in my heart I wasn’t going to make it to the top. My body wasn’t ready.
I begrudgingly declared my limit.
I set the halfway point as the new goal.

And I did it.
I made it there.
I felt an accomplishment.
I looked up at the summit.
I felt incomplete.
I felt beaten.

My literal, physical mountain stood in front of me this time and as if on cue said right back to me… “Great for the effort, but I won. I beat you. You didn’t have what it takes to get to the top.”

Do you have a mountain in front of you?
Is there a struggle between you and it, and it seems to be winning—all the time?
Do you cry out to God over and over asking why it’s still there?
Yet, It. Doesn’t. Move.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since that day.

I’ve been thinking of problems and heartaches and struggles that take their place in our lives like big, huge, straight-up vertical mountains.
They stare us in the face.
They have a hold on us.
We’re doing our best to conquer them and to make it to the top but we’re just not making headway.
They’re our big deal.

God met me in those thoughts.
He reminded me, quite frankly, there will be mountains in life that won’t be conquered. In fact, a lot of the mountains we’re trying to slay, end in futile work.
Sure, we do a lot of climbing of our hills of problems, telling ourselves the whole way up, like I did that day, “This is a big deal. I’m fighting this. I need to conquer this. I need to get to the top.” But those are our words—not God’s. He operates in the big, we see in the small.

And I realized I have often correlated God’s greatness with the fixing of problems. Specifically, how much and how fast my mountains move out of my way. I’ve doubted His greatness when my smallness consumed me.

I wish I could give you great wisdom for the slaying of your mountains, when they’re not budging. I can’t. But what I can say is, it’s more about a lesson in trust than it is in the trial.

Trust…He has a purpose.
Trust…He has a plan.
Trust…He has the end in sight.

Mountains. Our mountains. Sometimes they stay put—for a very long time. At those times, at this time, at anytime it’s all about how we see the Maker not the mountain.
It’s about knowing deep in our heart a simple statement…

…And if not He is still good.

I pray if you are facing a mountain right now, you don’t look at the climb. I pray, instead, you see that the God of our faith knows the whole story and the whole plan and you can rest in that. I pray somewhere in the midst of it all, you see He is forever good no matter the outcome.

 

(statement—author unknown—an interpretation of Daniel 3:16-18)

2 Replies

  1. Lori perez

    There is a song that I like to listen to when my mountain gets to high for me and it’s by Lauren Daigle. “I Will Trust In You”. To me that song says alot when my mountain gets to high for me and I start getting down about it. Just wanted to share that.

    1. Love that song, Lori! Even got to see her live at a concert. More than once it played in my head as I wrote the words. I love inspiration when it comes from all angles.

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