When the Mountain Doesn’t Move

When the mountain doesn’t move.

When our children were small and just learning to climb the stairs, either my husband or I stood behind them, ready to catch them if they fell. They tottered precariously on the edge of a step, oblivious to any danger. Unless they actually fell, they probably didn’t give much thought to the protection they had.

It is easy to imagine God like that. We may picture Him as a loving parent who stands ready to protect us from dangers or catch us if we start to slide.

That analogy works when we experience one of His rescues. But, what about when He doesn’t seem to catch us and we’re left bruised and bleeding at the bottom of the stairs? God hasn’t failed us. He is not lacking love or power. Our image of Him is incomplete.

Suffering has been defined as either having something we don’t want or wanting something we don’t have. We don’t have to look far to find some form of it. It often seems to us haphazard and indiscriminate.

It is hard to reconcile tragic suffering with our image of a loving, all-powerful God. When we know it is within His capacity to remove suffering, we are prone to ask, “Why doesn’t He?” We know mustard seed-sized faith will move mountains, yet we face mountains of difficulty and suffering that won’t budge. Our questions and frustrations over matters of faith arise out of a limited view of our heavenly Father. He is loving and all-powerful. He is also sovereign, wise and all-knowing.

We can’t know God intimately just by looking at what He does. The ancient Israelites knew His deeds, but they didn’t understand His ways as Moses did (Psalm 103:7). Moses sought God with all his heart and soul. Moses spent time in communion with God. As we study Scripture and pray, God reveals His character. The better we know His character, the easier to trust Him.

Getting a mountain to move involves more than simply believing God can move it. We must approach God knowing He can do anything, but seeking to discover His will.

Mountains are no problem for the Lord. He spoke them into being. He can knock them down in an instant. He can move them into the sea if He wants.

In the Bible, a mountain may be a place of worship–a place to be close to God. It may be a place of sacrifice. When a mountain of difficulty doesn’t move, it may mean we are trying to move the wrong mountain. Sometimes God has to deal with the mountain in our own heart attitude before he will deal with the mountain of circumstances.

God always has a higher purpose in mind. Want to be more prayerful? It is possible the mountain that doesn’t move is what God is using to drive us to our knees. Maybe we have asked the Lord to turn the heart of someone toward Him. Possibly, He is using this financial crisis or this illness to do just that. God is always interested in the eternal results. We spend our lives trying to move temporal mountains while God is interested in the eternal landscape.

Life is hard. When we experience trouble, we can choose to complain about what we can’t change, or we can seek God in the middle of it. He may calm the storm, or He calms our hearts as the storm rages. Either way, we can experience peace.

It is easy to trust God when everything is going well. When things are not going well, we learn how to really trust Him. Real mountain-moving -faith not only believes in his power to move any mountain, but trusts in His wisdom when he doesn’t.

That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.              2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NLT

How have you been able to draw closer to God, and experience His peace, when the mountain doesn’t move? Please leave a comment below.

Blessings,
Phyllis

© 2025 Phyllis L. Farringer

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