ZPCBlog

About the author: Amanda Stricker has been attending ZPC since the tender age of two and loves participating in a variety of ways, including as a worship tech team member and an elder. Outside of church, she relishes the chance to love and serve as a Social Studies and Language Arts teacher at Eman Schools, a private Islamic K-12 institution.

 This week's scripture: Isaiah 2:1-5

“The mountain of the Lord’s house will be highest of all -  the most important place on earth. It will be raised above the other hills…” Isaiah 2:2.

When attempting to spend 15 minutes meditating on God, I’ve taken to calling it “going to the mountain,” which really encapsulates this week’s reflection passage. When reading Isaiah 2:1-5, I continuously get stuck on a large, looming image: the mountain.

When I think of mountains, I think “geographic features that act as barriers to human travel, communication, and trade” (because I am a social studies teacher and that definition is an Indiana Academic State Standard for both 6th and 7th grade). Historically, mountains cut us off from one another. They can be protective barriers preventing invasion from outside forces, but they also restrict the exchange of goods and ideas, hem us in, and limit our world view. They are “too high,” or “too difficult,” or “too impassable” to cross, and so they stop us from seeing or going beyond their dominating presence.

Mountains also symbolize figurative challenges: a time of struggle and hardship, a task that seems impossible for us to accomplish, an exertion at which we are doomed to fail, like Sisyphus of Greek mythology who eternally rolls a boulder up a hill only to have gravity drag it down when it gets mere inches from the top.

There have been SO MANY mountains of pain and struggle in 2020, and I, like all of you I am sure, am exhausted.

And yet, the mountain in Isaiah 2:1-5 is “the mountain of the Lord’s house.” How is God a mountain? Our relationship to God is a mountain in every sense of the word, the “highest of all.” If you have found yourself struggling to connect with God or to find 15 minutes a day to meditate on his presence, good! Mountains by their very essence are MEANT to be difficult; the greatest challenge humanity will ever face is knowing and pleasing God. Humans have existed for thousands of years, and we STILL haven’t sighted the summit! We won’t reach that peak until our time here on Earth is done.

And yet the reward for continuously struggling up the mountain, even when we tumble and fall, is pure bliss for the soul, so much better than all things on Earth. As Philippians 3:8 states, “Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” As we climb the mountain of God, this “most important place on Earth,” we can see so much further than when we stay in our easy little valley. The further we ascend, the more the shadows cast upon the valleys peel away, and we “walk in the light of the Lord.” When we walk in that light up the towering mountain of God, our horizons expand and our worldview widens, and then we can see and connect to other people more easily. We see nations from all over the world striving up the mountain with us, and we joyously celebrate our community of climbing. Is it any wonder that those who are seeking the summit of God’s presence no longer fight or train for war?

This advent season and 40-day challenge has been a struggle for me. I definitely have not taken 15 straight minutes to be with God purposely and reflectively every single day, although I always INTEND to. Despite my best efforts or intentions, I find myself slipping down the mountain and wandering off the trail. That’s ok. Luckily, God is always there to gently (or sometimes not so gently) grab me before I fall off a cliff and turn me back around to follow the path of my true purpose here on Earth. Thanking him and his Holy Spirit, I sheepishly pick up my grappling hook, the Bible, and continue the struggle upwards, following my Shepard. It is always a joy exerting myself in this way, and it is an even greater joy knowing all of you are exerting yourselves alongside me!

And maybe while we are climbing together, we can sing some mountain themed Christmas songs, such as “Go Tell it on the Mountain” by Pentatonix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcU492oAHUE

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