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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: MOUNTAIN (07/02/20)
During my trip to Israel, as we were looking at the iconic Jordan river as a part of it meandered through the countryside on its way to the Dead Sea, our guide made a comment that caught my attention and got me thinking about life. She explained that the water we were looking at had originated on snow high on the top of Mount Herman, a mountain many, many miles away. At the time I pondered how many people had lived in this place, enjoying the benefits of a key water source in a land where water is always at a premium and having no idea of the source of the gift. Many would likely have no idea that there was a Mount Herman and of those that knew of it a very few would have actually seen it. That we can be ignorant of something that is key to our lives is a conundrum that afflicts all of us at one time or another.

Jesus used the concept of a mountain often to communicate important spiritual truths. The seventeenth chapter of Matthew contains an account of a man who brought his epileptic son to the disciples who were unable to cure the boy of his malady. After rebuking the demon and putting the young man into his right condition, Jesus chastised his followers for their lack of faith. They had a little faith, but it was not even the size of a grain of a mustard seed; an especially small amount. If they had then, Jesus explained, they would be able to command a mountain to move from one place to another. In Jewish literature moving a mountain was a common metaphor for accomplishing the impossible. Mountains often seem to be unacceptable issues in our lives that we often complain about, but as with Mount Herman, they usually have benefits that we are completely unaware of.

All of us will at one time or another face mountains in our lives. Some are quite obvious and some less so, but all of them inevitably are involved in who we are becoming and in God’s ultimate purpose for us. While we tend to focus on the day to day, our Lord has a much longer view that ultimately takes in eternity. While we have a beginning, we do not have an end. We have the promise of eternal life and with it the hope of continually becoming who God created us to be. Like Mount Herman for those who have lived in Israel, God uses mountains of various kinds in our lives as blessings to enable us to become all that we can be in His sight. Mountains are often an opportunity for us to exercise faith, faith that releases the impossible in our lives and in the lives of others, and there is truly nothing more amazing and life-transforming than that.
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Member Comments
Member
Date
Holly Short
07/10/20
"that we can be ignorant of something that is key to our lives..." what a poignant and true statement to tie into the topic!
Sue Botte 
07/10/20
A good article. Thank you.
Barbara Culler 
07/10/20
This pandemic is quite the mountain we are all facing.We can't see our way around it, but trust God to get us through it.
Nancy Sullivan 
07/18/20
I enjoyed how you bring mountains together with spiritual applications and the reality of certain mountains in our lives.