The view from the top of a mountain on a clear day can be very rewarding, you see things from the top that you could not see from the bottom. Sometimes you can look down and see the path that led you to the top with all the twists and turns. Why not a straight path bottom to top?!
In the path of life, we sometimes find mountains before us – not literal mountains but large problems, or great worries, or difficult things to overcome. All these are ordered for us by God and are not by chance. Sometimes when we come to them, they seem so large we wonder however we can get beyond them. When feeling like this we would do well to listen to the word of God which so wonderfully teaches us the answer to all these problems.
We are to give them to the Lord to manage for us by praying for direction, for strength and for His gracious help. God has promised to help those who call upon Him in prayer with their troubles. ‘Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most high: And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.’ Psalm 50 V14 & 15
We are also given a wonderful promise concerning these mountains which tower over us and seem so immovable and impossible to get over. God says, ‘I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted.’ Isaiah ch49 v11
Caleb in the Old Testament did just this. He committed his way unto the Lord, and he trusted in his God. In Joshua ch14 we read of the dividing of the promised land into lots. Caleb reminds Joshua of the promise that God had given Caleb concerning the promised land when he returned from spying out the land. Only Joshua and Caleb gave a faithful report. The people murmured and God was angry, driving them away into the wilderness for 40 years until that generation of murmurers had died. But to Caleb a promise was made ‘But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it.’ Numbers ch14 v24
Caleb had seen the Anakims who occupied the land, he knew how capable they were in warfare, but Caleb also knew His God, and knew His God would not fail him.
In Joshua ch14 v12 when faced with this great test before him, he was able to say to Joshua ‘Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the LORD spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the LORD will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said.’
May God give us that living faith which seizes upon the promises and may He help us to plead them in prayer.
‘Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.’ Psalm37 v5