Lessons Learned In Pressing On - His Faithfulness and My Faith

A Little Background History

While I've spent a lot of time studying my Bible over the course of my life, I have never seen how many times the mountains are mentioned. The few passages that I have memorized containing the word, "mountain," held a somewhat abstract concept of something fixed, majestic and beautiful. But in reality, these passages held for me about as much understanding regarding mountains as a post card depicting the Denver Rockies. I knew they were cold and that any sane person would be satisfied by simply enjoying their beauty through a computer screen. In the mean time, some large ratio of psychotic snow lovers (said with the deepest respect of course) were addicted to "hiking" these beasts to experience them up close and personal. Those were the people I had no need to form friendship with. So, I did my best to avoid these "adventure lovers," as they called themselves, and (to make a long story short) MARRIED ONE???! On our one year anniversary my beloved husband and I agreed to hike a mountain. Unfortunately, due to some cultural barrier I'm sure, we soon discovered that we had two very different definitions of a hike. As I am not exactly a go-to-the-bathroom-in-the-woods kind of girl, my idea of a hike mainly consisted of a long walk on a big rock with frequent visitor booths and rest stops. My beloved's interpretation was to pack a lunch, wear layers, scale the side of a cliff and...(come on, really?!) make the woods your toilet! Biting back tears, with fear gripping my heart from the "do not feed the bears" signs, I marched for 3 long hours up the side of this "beauty" in the rain/snow. I'm pretty sure my drenched, cocker spaniel appearance led my compassionate husband to take a break...and subsequently take me back down to the car. All of this done with the vow that one day he would come back and conquer that mountain. I laughed to myself as I was confident that I would keep him far enough away from the mountains that there would be no such vindication for him. That would have worked great had we not moved one year later within 45 minutes of said mountain. . .

I'll leave the conclusion of this story for a different post. But it is 
here that my fascination with the mountains began. Over the course of this month I want to share with you some of the things that God has been teaching me about Himself. As I wake up every morning to see the mountains, as I study them every day and, as I now have a new appreciation of Scripture, I have stood in awe of my God countless times. Maybe you, like me, have been discouraged with life and are wondering how you could possibly press on in your journey with God one minute longer. Maybe you, like me, are tired and weary and battered. Maybe you, like many of us, need encouragement to keep walking forward in obedience. I hope you'll find that here.

"As the mountains surround Jerusalem, So the Lord surrounds His people from this time forth and forever more." Psalm 125:2

Faithfulness and Faith

"Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world, 

Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God." Psalm 90:2

Throughout Scripture God's faithfulness is compared to the constant protection of the mountains. Every morning I wake up to see the mountains in all their grandeur. I never go to bed at night wondering if they will have picked themselves up and walked away by morning. I know they will be there just as they have been for millennium. And so it is with God. God has graciously given us mountains to bring glory to Himself; for even their constance points us back to the unwavering, unchanging faithfulness of our God. And yet, this is just an image seen dimly. For, in reality, God's existence expands far beyond the birth of these mountains and will continue even after they fall into the sea (Ps 46:2). Still, there are moments in life which bar down on us with such oppressive violence that our vision is blinded and the clarity with which we once experienced God becomes completely skewed. Though we once knew great refreshment from reading His Word we now find that no matter how much we read we come up dry. The comfort of His presence seems stripped down to a cold loneliness. Like the Psalmist we cannot sense His presence and we seem totally abandoned (Ps 13:1-2). Some conclude that if you cannot sense God's presence it is because you are not seeking Him hard enough. They counsel you to, "focus on God rather than your problems and you'll find Him!" But, the reality is that God is already there with you in your problems. He is walking through them with you. If His face seems hidden from your view it is not because he is sadistically playing a game of hide and seek with you. Rather, it is likely that God has brought you to a time in which he is asking you to walk obediently by faith even though you cannot sense His presence. Often, in such an experience, God is calling you to walk in utter desolation in order to come to a new understanding of the beauty of God's faithfulness. For it is in these times, when we choose to trust that God is faithfully present though hidden from view, that true faith is lit on fire and shines as a beacon in the smoke. 

In August we experienced an interesting phenomenon when strong wild fires in our area created such a heavy screen of haze that the mountains completely disappeared. We woke up day after day to see only smoke. Our beautiful mountains appeared to be gone. Yet, when a strong wind shifted, it revealed that they had been standing firmly in their place though the human eye was limited. How often we run terrified and chaotic when trials cloud our view of our faithful God. Like mindless creatures we run about in utter distress because, "God left me! I always knew one day he would!!" Despite His faithfulness which has existed from everlasting, the same faithfulness which has never wavered for one moment, our flesh still responds this way. Could it be that in these times God is commanding, by His grace and empowerment, that you walk by faith? Could it be that God is not going to remove the smoke no matter how much we try to manipulate Him by "focusing on Him" more? Could it be that God does not desire that we crawl on our hands and knees to avoid the smoke? Could it be that He is commanding us to simply stand firmly grounded, unmovable, unshaken in obedience (Eph 6:13)? Could it be that God has allowed Himself to seem clouded from view to train you to find your confident hope not in your human senses but in the Truth that He remains (Psalm 143:7-12)? From everlasting to everlasting He will not change or forsake His children. It is here, when every human experience fails, that we believe in what is not seen and hold fast to the truths we know. For. . . 

    "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)