“For I am the Lord your God, who holds your right hand, who says to you, “Do not fear, I will help you.” Isaiah 41:13 CSB
God is holding our hand and telling us to not be afraid, He’s going to help. Too often though, we underestimate Him. As I write this, I’m sitting at the top of a mountain, literally. I’m 26,265 ft up in the air, equivalent to a half mile. When I look around, all I see is mountaintops. The air is clear, the fog has lifted and I can hear the sounds of traffic from the valley below. Our scripture for this year is Matthew 17:20: “He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (NIV). What God is saying in this verse is that if I have enough faith, I could make the mountains move around me. That seems impossible, but in reality, it’s all about perspective.
Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, tells us in Proverbs we are to “stay on the safe path” (Proverbs 4:26 NLT). The safe path is the one God leads you on, wherever it may be. The path isn’t boring, it’s the exact opposite, it is filled with mountains to climb and valleys to endure. As Mark Batterson loves to say, “Playing it safe is risky.” Because I’m following the path the Lord is leading me on, I’m sitting on a mountaintop. Yesterday, as we climbed this mountain, my husband was so anxious he snapped at me, completely unlike him. His actions indicated to me how nervous he was. I prayed silently as we climbed the mountain, when the truck seemed to struggle, I prayed a little harder. I thought, Lord, this is a small mountain, if we can’t do this, how are we going to do the rest of the trip? But God reminded me, He’s the maker of the mountains, He’s the leader of our path. Where God guides, He provides. He’ll get us where He wants us to go, He’ll move the mountains or carry us up them, either way, we’ll get there. I had to be reminded to keep my eyes on Him and let Him lead the way.
The reason we don’t think God can move mountains is because we focus on the wrong thing. We have the wrong perspective. Instead of focusing on how big our God is, we focus on how big the mountain is we’re trying to climb. We forget that God can move the mountains, climb the mountains, do whatever He wants with the mountains, because He created them. If He wants to move them, He will. More often though, He wants us to climb the mountain. He wants us to face our fears. He wants us to get to the top so we can overcome our fears and find the freedom He desires us to have. But we can’t do it if we take our eyes off of Him, and forget He’s holding our hand. He’ll drag you to the top if He has to, but He’ll get you there. He doesn’t give up and neither should we.
