The Jungfrau. Photo taken near a farm outside Grindelwald, Switzerland, in June 1980. We had taken the trip with heavy cloud cover until this picture was taken. It is as if God reached down with His holy light, so that we could actually see the Swiss Alps.

October 3, 2024 / 0 comments

How to Move a Mountain

Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

  • Matthew 21:21-22

“According to the Bible, believers can be confident that their prayers will be answered. Our prayers are more than wishes, hopes or feeble aspirations—but only if we pray with believing, faith-filled hearts. That is the kind of prayer that moves mountains.
“Jesus, of course, was not in the excavation business. He had little interest in relocating piles of rocks in the ocean’s depths. … Whatever mountain stands in your path, whatever obstacle blocks your way, whatever difficulty immobilizes you, the prayer of faith can remove it.
“That sounds good, but how can we learn to pray with a faith-filled heart? How can we develop the confidence that removes roadblocks? …
“The first principle is this: Faith comes from looking at God, not at the mountain.”

  • Bill Hybels, Too Busy Not to Pray

In my lifetime, I have seen a lot of strange things, but I have not seen a mountain lift off the ground and jump into the sea.  Volcanoes appear from nowhere in the middle of the ocean?  Sure.  But I have to ask.  Why not a mountain jumping into the sea?

What has held me back from moving mountains is that I have not had a literal mountain that needed moving.  The figurative mountains as Rev. Hybels suggests have been numerous.  And sometimes they hang around. A father of one of my high school classmates ran a feed and seed store, and he prayed that if the hill behind his shop was not there, he could double his business.  Sure, it took excavators and twenty years, but he had faith in God, one scoop of dirt at a time.

Is the “mountain” a test of faith that I must endure?  Do I have doubts?  Sure, should we not all have a doubt whether that mountain, literal or figurative, is there by the will of God, thus, moving it might not be the will of God? And if one of us puny humans had the undoubting faith that the mountain will move, what happens soon after?  Do you get so proud of yourself for having that much faith to move a mountain that God cannot stand to look at you?  Search for pride in the Bible and you quickly learn that God does not like that.  Why get arrogant when the mountain moved?  God did that.  You did not.  But in most cases, we would be proud of what we prayed for happening.  But Rev. Hybel’s biblical example was David, who did not see a giant.  David marveled at how big God was.

But pray, we must.  Have faith, we must.  And God hears and answers those prayers, even while saying, “Oh, you, of little faith.”

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.

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