Immovable Mountains

“So, what if the mountain doesn’t move?” I’m sure you’ve heard the popular and quite powerful message that you can have the faith even as small as a mustard seed and be able to “move mountains.” And if you think about it, that is one of the most encouraging and inspiring messages of faith in the whole of Scripture! After all, the mustard seed is the smallest seed – and what Jesus was saying was that you can have just a tiny speck of faith, shaky, barely felt, but there – an itty bitty faith in God’s ability to change your circumstances and bring you out victoriously, and speak to your problem and boom! The mountain will move!

Say, you have a crisis – you were laid off at work, your rent is overdue, and you just received a letter from the electric company that your electricity will be cut off if your bill is not paid by noon that Friday. Talk about a mountain of trouble! Despite the cataclysmic essence of these circumstances, you still barely hold on to the Lord’s promises that, if you believe in Him and His ability to deliver you, even if your faith that isn’t very strong because you are overwhelmed by your situation, nevertheless, you can still speak to that mountain, “God, I trust you in this issue! I can’t meet my financial needs, but I speak in faith that You will deliver me, somehow. Help me to trust in you…” and suddenly, an answer comes! You get a phone call from a friend, who felt the Lord leading them to give you a certain amount of money, which happens to be the exact amount of your rent. Then, the electric company calls, apologizing for the notice they sent you, finding that you had a credit on your account, so you won’t be billed for the next 2 months! And then, the phone rings a third time, and it’s a human resources agent from a local business office, who just received your resume and a positive referral and would like to interview you for a possible job! BOOM! The mountain moves!

This is how quickly God can work! He can take your little seed of faith in His “bigness,” and use it on your mountain of troubles, completely transforming the most perplexing situation into a citadel of triumph! Suddenly!

But, as we all well know…though this kind of turnaround is not impossible and does occur from time to time…it doesn’t always work that way, does it? Sometimes, even with the faith of a mustard tree, which is the largest tree there is, the mountain still DOES NOT MOVE. You pray fervently and confidently, “God, I trust in You! You can deliver me from this mess! I speak to this situation and say that You will be glorified in my crisis! You have all power and authority and I release it onto my circumstances.”…but…they still cut off your lights; you go weeks without work, you find yourself getting deeper and deeper in debt, trying to stay in your home and paying rent with loans…what then? How do you reconcile Christ’s promise and inspirational principle on faith and declaration when your life experience seems to prove the reverse?

This second scenario seems to happen quite a bit; oh, we love to hear the stories and testimonies of the first, and we shout and “hallelujah” the sermons and teachings on the promise of deliverance… “All you need is faith! It’s faith that moves mountains”…but sometimes, our deliverance doesn’t come, at least, not the way we’d have hoped it would. We begin to question ourselves, “Is it because I don’t have enough faith? Did I not declare it ‘right’? Is there hidden sin in my heart? Why is this still happening to me? Why does the mountain not move?” Though we do need to seek our hearts and check our spirits for doubt, sin, and unbelief, we must also recognize that sometimes, the mountain doesn’t move, not because of lack of faith, but because of God’s greater purposes.

“O LORD, by Your favor, You have made my mountain to stand strong…” (Ps. 30:7)

What in the world is the psalmist saying here?! God’s favor makes the mountain to stand strong?! Yes. Out of His love for us, God will KEEP the mountain right where it is, let you persevere through the storm and crisis, let you face the “worst case scenario”… why? Because He loves you! This is not always what we like to hear. We want to hear of ways to “get out” of our crisis, escape our ailments, be rescued away from all our fears…but God and life don’t always work that way. But what is more perplexing about this verse is the fact that God won’t let your mountain move because of His favor (i.e. His overabundant LOVE) for you!

“If God loved me, then why would He let this happen to me?” Martha and Mary asked the same question. They sent for Jesus when their brother, and His dear friend, was sick. And guess what? Jesus didn’t come. He stayed right where He was and let their mountain remain; and to add insult to injury, the Bible says He did this because He “loved” them (ref. Jn. 11: 5-6). Excuse me? He loved this family, so He let them suffer and confront their worst fears? How is that love?!

Thankfully, Jesus explains, “This sickness (mountain) is…for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” (Jn. 11:4) In other words, the mountain Martha, Mary, and Lazarus faced was going to remain because Christ was going to glorify Himself through their mountain, and then allow them to participate in His triumph!

We all know the story – Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. But have you ever read the following verses and the next chapter after this great occurrence? Time and again, the Scriptures state that because of Lazarus people were coming from all over the region to see this resurrected man and the One, who raised him, and consequently, a “multitude” believed in Christ’s divinity! They weren’t just coming to see Jesus! They wanted to see LAZARUS! Lazarus became the celebrated vessel of Christ’s glory!

Had Jesus moved the mountain beforehand, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus would have missed out on being Christ’s most effective evangelistic tool in the final days of His earthly ministry! Oh, there would have been “shouts” and “hallelujahs” over his healing, but the extent of his ministry would have ended that day and been limited to a small group of witnesses. God didn’t want this family, whom He dearly loved, to be limited in their influence – He wanted them to experience a grander scope of His glory, be powerful tools of ministry that even had the religious authorities trembling (ref. Jn. 12:19)…it was His FAVOR that propelled them into this new dimension of triumph and effectiveness!

But what had to come first? An immovable mountain that WOULD NOT budge, even with all the faith they could muster…and, yes, they had to go through their worst fears.

If you are in a crisis, and you have been praying, asking, pleading with God to move the mountain of adversity, and your mountain still isn’t moving, take heart. It’s not that God doesn’t hear you; He does. It’s not that you don’t have enough faith; you do. Maybe this mountain is not supposed to be moved like you’d like; perhaps this mountain is not necessarily an obstacle against you, but a gift of God’s favor for you! What if this mountain is actually saying how much God loves you, and reveals His insatiable desire for you to experience a side of His glory, that will catapult you into a realm of ministerial influence that you couldn’t have possibly imagined? What if He plans to share a triumph with you that is so incredible and glorious that many people will believe in Him all because they saw you?! This mountain isn’t an indictment on your faith; it’s a sign of your preciousness to the Father!

Don’t despair. Your mountain may remain for a little while, but your certain victory will make all the tears, all the perplexity, and all the heartache you endured in your crisis more than worth the while.