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Previous Challenge Entry
Topic: Mountains (09/20/04)
TITLE: MY MOUNTAIN, YOUR HILL
By Charles Lee
09/21/04
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“Well how tall does it have to be?” This was a question I asked a friend one day while hunting in the hills of Tennessee several years ago. We had just gotten to the top of the hill and stopped to take a break. “I’ve…gasp…never…gasp…been on…wheeze…a mountain…gasp…before.” Jogging around to “keep his circulation going”; he informed me that this was just a hill. Thus the question. He answered that a mountain had to be so many feet tall to be qualified as a mountain. Having the oxygen sucked from my brain cells had hindered my ability for coherent thought and so I just lay there pretending to enjoy nature while hoping my heart wouldn’t pound out of my chest. Maybe it wasn’t a mountain, but it sure did seem like one at the time.

As I grew accustomed to the “hills” and got into better physical shape, I was able to take my place with the elite who got to poke fun at others who mistook hills for mountains. I also took the time to see an actual mountain.

Looking out over the world from the top of one of these mountains, I couldn’t help but wonder what God thought of these magnificent rock piles. So I went back to creation. From the making of the heavens and the earth, the hanging of the sun and moon and stars, and the speaking into existence all the animals, when God got through, He looked at it and said it was good. Good? Well, at the end He said very good. Not breathtaking, not mind-boggling, or any other adjective that would exclaim in a loud voice how amazing this world is: …just good.

It makes me wonder just how, um, good, heaven must be. I’m sure its grandeur would truly suck all the oxygen from the brain cells that I possess.

As my daughter came to me with her mountain of a problem the other day: something to do with school so mom had to handle it, I considered how my mountain problems must look in the eyes of God. Flatter than the Delta region no doubt.

Over the years, I’ve learned somewhat how to turn these mountain problems over to the creator of mountains. Undoubtedly, as I do with my children, He compassionately helps me see that there is no mountain to tall, that with His help, I cannot climb and get over. Many times, though, I just lay there gasping for breath and questioning, “You sure this isn’t a mountain?”