Dear One,
Have you ever made something that’s hard, harder still?
I sure have.
In our home, knowing our tendencies to do this very thing, we ask ourselves a question. When faced with the hard, we acknowledge and name it. Then, we pause to ask: do we really want to make this harder still?
The answer is, of course not!Who would want to do that?
Oh, but humans that we are, we do it anyway.
By magnifying the issue with intense focus, or attaching all kinds of unrelated baggage to it, the big becomes bigger. The hard, harder. And suddenly, out of our molehill, we’ve made a mountain which we can no longer ascend.
Are you with me? We waste all kinds of energy in the exertion required to scale the mountains of our very own making. As if the molehills didn’t trip us up enough.
To make a mountain out of a molehill involves a lot of energy. One must pile on all kinds of things to increase its size: emotions, expectations, blame, shame, past and future alike. Add in a good amount of rumination and voila! – mission complete – you’ve made a mountain. It’s pretty consuming work! Work we were never asked to do in the first place.
Jesus tells us our faith can move mountains (Matthew 17:20), but I don’t think he ever instructed us to make them!
Scripture records a story about a man and a mountain that has recently caught my attention. The man was Zerubbabel, and various translations name the mountain he faced as one of “obstacles and opposition.”
Got any of those?
Zerubbabel was no match for what lay before him, but the mountain was no match for God, who kindly stepped in brought it down to size, saying:
“So, big mountain, who do you think you are?
Next to Zerubbabel you’re nothing but a molehill.”
Zechariah 4:6-7 (Message)
Ha! God makes molehills out of mountains. I can’t love this enough! He shrinks things to size, obstacles and opposition that can loom so large. I think this is one of my favorite things about God, the way He makes our paths straight.
If, by faith, we can move mountains – maybe we can molehill them that way as well?
- What if, instead of making much of my molehills, I made much of God?
- What if I, like God, could SEE that this mountain I’ve made is actually just a molehill I’ve emotionally-accessorized a bit too much?
- What if I fed my faith more than my fears?
- What if I stopped making the hard, harder still?
Of mountains and molehills: Our Little Life Words of the week.
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DEEPER DIVE
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Ponder:
- In what ways do you make hard things, harder still?
- How do you emotionally-accessorize your molehills, increasing their size?
Practice:
- The next time you find yourself making a mountain out of a molehill, stop. Ask God to help you see its real size. Then switch your focus and make much of God.
- When you face something hard, ask yourself if you really want to make it harder still.
Play:
- Our song of the week is: Trust in You by Lauren Daigle
Pray:
- Take your mountains and molehills to God knowing nothing is too big (or small) for God to handle.
Friend, the truth is that not all mountains are of our own making, and not all mountains are moved. There are some that stand imposing and seemingly impassable that we must climb. The prophet Habakkuk speaks of such a time:
“The Lord God is my strength, my source of courage.
He has made my feet steady and sure, like hinds’ feet
and makes me walk forward on my high places of challenge and responsibility.”
Habakkuk 3:19 (Amplified)
What mountains are you making, moving, or, with God’s help, mounting? Drop me a note and let me know. Just remember, contrary to Julie Andrews well-loved song, not every mountain needs climbing?