Where’s Your Mountain?
Sep 6, 2021 4244
Where’s your mountain? There wasn’t a mountain I ever saw that I didn’t want to climb (although the practicalities of that desire are another thing!) There is the rewarding effort of getting to the top, and then the magnificent views at the summit.
Mountains are special in the Bible too. Abraham was called to a mountain as the climax of his spiritual journey. Moses was called up a mountain to meet with God. This is a pattern that we can find throughout the Bible.
These days, I don’t climb many mountains. Life’s too busy these days. However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have my mountain: my special places where I love to be with Jesus.
When I pray, I love to do it while walking in a beautiful, natural place, such as in a peaceful park or the beach. That’s when I really feel close to God and hear his voice.
Jesus loved to spend time with his heavenly Father. He demonstrated the ultimate fulfilment of the Bible’s injunction to,
pray continually (1 Thess. 5:17).
To preserve your relationship with Jesus, you have to find your mountain.
Christ’s prayer life wasn’t limited to the specific times that he set aside to pray. He was literally always praying, because he always maintained the channels of communication with his heavenly Father opened. In whatever he was doing, Jesus was continually praying. Prayer wasn’t just part of his daily life, it was his daily life.
Never-the-less, the gospels show us that Jesus specifically set aside specific times for prayer. However, what we may not have noticed, is that the gospels tell us that Jesus often went up a mountain to pray. Here is an example:
After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray… (Matt. 14:23; See also Luke 6:12).
Perhaps we might not have realised it, but when Jesus went climbed up the Mount of Transfiguration, he probably did it because he wanted to pray:
After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves (Matt. 17:1).
Gethsemane, the location of Christ’s great high priestly prayer, and his prayer in agony before the Cross, was on the Mount of Olives. He went there to pray (Mark 14:32).
This world will always grind you down. It will always wear you out. It is toxic, like acid that destroys your soul and severs our connection with God, if you let it. To preserve your relationship with Jesus, you have to find your mountain.
Where’s your mountain?
We’re all different. There are different environments that bring each one of us closer to God. But every one of us needs a place where we can go, apart from the busyness of this world, to spend time with God.
What I find is that when I don’t visit my mountain often enough, I lose the spring in my step, the heaviness of the world starts to weigh on my mind more and more, and little by little I start to lose my grip on the most important things in life: the quality of my relationship with God and with those around me.
Where’s your mountain? The important thing is to know where it is and to visit it frequently, as Jesus did. It might be a special room in the house which is your place of prayer. For others, your “mountain” might be a walk on the beach, or a beautiful lookout, or a peaceful park where you can sit.
I know that Christ is present with me wherever and whenever I may be, but in my experience, there are special places and times when I feel closest to God, and when I need to be filled with his peace or power, it’s to those places that I go. Again I ask you, where’s your mountain?
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Greig Lipman
Sep 12, 2021
So blessed by this insight Also at the moment before this reading I read heard this, also a song “Show me the place” (Patrick Leonard Cohen) “Show me the place Where you want your slave to go Show me the place I've forgotten, I don't know Show me the place For my head is bending low Show me the place Where you want your slave to go Show me the place Help me roll away the stone Show me the place I can't move this thing alone Show me the place Where the Word became a man Show me the place Where the suffering began ……,………………… Show me the place” This means to Me that in my walk I have come like a slave. I have thought that correct doctrine would get me there….. “the chains” of behaviour. But what I need is to ..,”roll away the stone” and see Jesus for what he is. “My suffering Slave” This is where the humility begins. First his Then mine.
Eliezer Gonzalez
Sep 12, 2021
Beautiful, Greig. Thanks for sharing - Eliezer