Words from the Rock
I tell you the truth, if you have faith and don’t doubt, you can do things like this and much more. You can even say to this mountain, “May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,” and it will happen. You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it.
Matthew 21:21–22 NLT
Short of a volcanic eruption unlike anything man has ever seen, or a nuclear explosion that would most likely end life as we know it, it’s pretty hard to imagine how a mountain could be lifted and thrown into the sea. Furthermore, why would anyone want that to happen? If those mountain-moving events really did occur, the results would probably include some major global warming, not to mention a total meltdown of the polar icecaps. Really, why would anyone want to move a mountain? Unless that mountain was in the way.
In Jesus’s time, most travel was done on foot. If there was a mountain between point A and point B, travelers would have to go around it. A mountain was an obstacle, an obstruction, a hindrance to commuting. It slowed people down. For that reason, there might have been times when a weary traveler would have liked to toss the mountain into the sea. Of course, that wasn’t possible.
Maybe that’s why Jesus uses the mountain-moving metaphor—because it sounds so impossible. Maybe Jesus wants us to grasp that when we have faith in him, we are able to do the impossible.
What is the mountain in your life? What is it that gets in your way, slows you down, and comes between where you are and where you want to be? Is it a tough relationship? An addiction? An inability to forgive someone? Those kinds of things are like mountains—they obstruct your way. Have you asked Jesus to give you the faith to move that mountain?
My Prayer
Dear God,
Please help me to recognize the mountains that need to be removed from my life. Give me the kind of earth-shaking faith to move them.
Amen.
Final Word
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
Romans 8:31 NASB
Stone for the Journey
With Jesus, I can remove mountains from my life.