Mountain Top

From the earliest days of mankind, people looked upward to identify their god. After all, the sun and moon were moving elements that generated wonder; add to that storms and lightning and wind. The source of power appeared to be in the sky. As long as people thought the earth was flat, they looked up to find their god.

A Hebrew poet had a different idea. He wrote: "I lift my eyes to the hills; but my help doesn't come from there. My help comes from the Lord who made the heavens and the earth."  That was a mind-stretching proposition, and it revolutionized the Hebrew thinking. When a Hebrew king "reformed" their religion, he went about destroying the mountain-top shrines and temples the "pagans" had built.

The revolutionary idea is still waiting to register in our thinking. When a successful surgery is accomplished, the bystanders look up to the sky  and say "Thank God!  The football player makes a touchdown and points up to the sky gratefully. The Druze people in Israel build their cities on mountain tops to be "nearer to God."

Of course it is easier to point to the mountain top than to live in a positive relationship with the Creator. But our real opportunity to live faithfully lies in looking beyond the heavens and the earth to the real Source of our being: the Lord who made the heavens and the earth..

Larry