Creating Sensless Mountains

Jesus said that if a person has the faith the size of a mustard seed and not doubt he can tell a mountain to move into the sea and it will happen. I’m not sure I know anyone that has done this, but I do have an idea how getting rid of a mountain can be accomplished. Actually, I think mountain moving is done by many of us every day. Let me point out that  I don’t know if my theory is exactly a theological fact, but I do think it makes sense if we understand what a mountain is.

Very often I find myself getting upset when my life seems to unravel, or when I overreact to something that suddenly goes wrong. In those occasions I construct my own mountains. In other words I make a mountain out of a molehill. Many mountains are created from small molehills. I have dealt with individuals in churches who are very good at building the tallest, ugliest mountain I’ve ever seen. This happens in every work place, and if you pay attention it happens on the political trails, especially during the campaign. The political mountains seem to never stop growing because they branch out into our lives. They spur us on to take a particular molehill and fashion our own mountain. People all over our nation over react to harsh statements made, lies told, and political jargon spun to discredit an opponent. Mountain chains as big and as long as the Rockies have been created.

Yesterday I had a series of insignificant things to go wrong, one after the other. I couldn’t get my outside electrical outlets to work. I spilled a cup of coffee, which I do often.  I lost something. It was one of those mornings when I thought, “Why do these things happen to me?” It wasn’t long that the spilled coffee was cleaned up. I got the outlets working. I found the thing I had misplaced, and there were a couple of other little aggravations that were remedied. Suddenly all was right with the world. Taking a moment to sit down and take a deep breath I realized how foolish I had been to make four or five mountains out of those molehills. I asked God to forgive me. Then I thought of that verse, “Jesus replied, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done.” Matthew 21:21

We need to stop constructing our own mountains, and put our trust in Jesus. We need to be ready when life creates those really big mountains, those mountains that frighten us and we don’t think we can climb over them. Even the ones we didn’t build out of molehills can be moved if our faith is in Jesus. Don’t cry over spilled milk (or coffee). Count to ten. Take a deep breath and stomp those molehills before they become mountains. Life is too short create mountains out of insignificant events.