The Mountains Rule

"I'll wait in the car."  It was our third trip to Yosemite that summer and my  husband felt that El Capitan would look the same as the last three times we'd visited the national park.  Years ago we lived a couple hours away from Yo-se-mite, as our new friends pronounced it.  We had a number of international visitors that summer. The international visitors always wanted to see Yosemite and Disneyland when they came to California.  (I think we did Disney three times that year also!)  My husband wasn't much of a scenery man in those days.  After living in Idaho and Utah for several months, he's become quite the mountain admirer.

(These are photos of the Tetons in Wyoming and Superstition Mountains in Arizona.  Digital photos weren't available to me 30+ years ago!)

In Micah 6:1-5, the prophet uses some imagery.  He presents the scenario of the Lord presenting His legal case for the Israelites' unfaithfulness to a judge.  The mountains play the part of the judge.  He challenges the Israelites to present their defense to the  mountains and hills.

"My people, what have I done to you?" (6:3a) is the question the Lord poses to the Israelites.  The Lord lists what He has done:  He brought them out of Egypt and redeemed them from a life of slavery.  He gave them leaders in Moses, Aaron and Miriam.  He thwarted the evil intentions of Balak and Balaam and made blessings.

I was impressed by irony of the choice of the mountains as the judge in Micah's message.  The Israelites had been  unfaithful by worshiping the high places of idols.  Now the Lord reminds the Israelites that the mountains, which He created,  the highest places the Israelites have ever seen, see everything.  The mountains silently  observe everything because they tower above everything.  You can hide in a mountain but you can't  hide from a mountain.

Mountains must have been ageless to the Israelites.  The mountains were the same in their fathers' days, their grandfathers' days, their great-grandfathers' days.  So my husband was right El Capitan did look the same as it did early that summer and thirty years before, one  hundred years before and so forth.  To my limited lifetime the mountains are timeless.  They are among the very oldest of the earth.  Compared to my life they are everlasting.

This morning the question presented to the  mountains challenges me to make a list.  What has God done  to me?  Last night's small group bible study on Ephesians helped me compile my response to the mountains:

I have been rescued, loved, chosen, forgiven, redeemed;

I have been given a purpose, given a family, given worth.

I have protection, meaning and direction.

I am never alone.

(That's my list off the top of my head without reviewing my notes or rereading Ephesians!)

God gets the credit and the mountains will rule in His favor.  I'm ready to visit El Capitan again just to let the mountains know what God has done for me.