Moving Mountains

 

I usually try to avoid asking God, “Why?” Not because I don’t want to know, but because I have learned He usually doesn’t answer such inquiries, at least not directly. He is God. He doesn’t owe us explanations. But sometimes the question looms large, and I just want answers. In one such instance, after wrestling with a broken friendship for what seemed like a very long time, I hit my knees and asked Him bluntly, “Why doesn’t this mountain move?” I don’t know what I expected, exactly, but I sought relief from the hurt I felt.

I don’t claim to hear an audible voice when the Lord speaks to me. Most often, He speaks to me through Scripture. He also speaks thoughts into my spirit. Usually just a few words, but they are clearly thoughts I know didn’t originate with me. That day, as I prayed, a thought jolted me. “You are trying to move the wrong mountain.” I had come to expect Him to speak with a sentence or two. That day He spoke in paragraphs. “This thing you are praying about is not the problem. Your attitude about it is the real problem. It is consuming all of your energy. It is overtaking your prayer life. There are other things in your life that demand your attention, but you are ignoring them because your emotions are so distracted by this.”

Wow! As I saw with clarity how problematic my own thoughts and feelings were, concerning the situation at hand, I asked His forgiveness, and I asked Him to do something about my heart problem.

He did. I began to accept my inability to change the situation. Whether or not it ever changed, I needed to get on with my life. I paid more attention to the other things I needed to care about. I stopped demanding the answer I wanted.

As I let Him deal with the mountain in my own heart, I began to notice the other mountain moving also. It didn’t happen all at once, but a few rocks and shovelfuls at a time. The landscape never looked as I originally envisioned it, but in the end, the Lord created a thing of beauty.

That is His way. We want Him to change something external to us. To move a mountain, to heal an illness, to change someone’s heart. We want miracles. We want them now. He provides them, but in His time. And in His way. He is all powerful. There is nothing He can’t do. But often the real miracle is the change He brings about in us, so we learn to trust Him when His answer is not the one for which we were looking.

. . . I tell you the truth, 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. Matthew 17:20

Blessings,
Phyllis

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Moving Mountains first appeared on www.sandykirbyquandt.com

Copyright 2022 Phyllis L. Farringer