Mountains

Do you recall the first time you ever came face to face with the majestic grandeur of the Mission Mountains, mountains of the Swan Range, or the glacier capped peaks in Glacier National Park?

For me, it was exactly ten years ago after a long night of driving from Colorado. Some friends of ours were moving to Montana and had invited us to visit their new home. Somewhere around 3:00 in the morning, I was still driving hard to get to some little place called Bigfork Montana; 800 miles behind us, and no idea of how many to go. The whole family was in a deep, Interstate sleep and I had plenty of time to think-and the only thing I could think about was that our friends had lost their minds. Who would want to live this far past nowhere! As I got out of the van at a convenience store in Ronan, the eastern sky was showing the first signs of light, but not enough to see anything around me yet. Somehow, I drove from Ronan to Polson without ever looking to my right until I started down the big hill south of Polson. Then they hit me. I looked right, saw the Missions rising out of Flathead Lake, and almost drove off the highway. My verbal reaction to their stark beauty startled the entire family awake. We had seen a great deal of mountains before, but never any this magnificent.

Ten years later, it is still rare for a day to go by without one of us alerting the rest with, "Look at the mountains!" as they are silhouetted by the rising sun, framed by a rainbow, buffetted by thundershowers or snow squalls, or highlighted by the setting sun. The components of our spectacular environment…the mountains, the Big Sky, the forests, the turquoise blue lakes and the wildlife inhabiting all of them…are undeniably valuable resources, but is it possible we elevate them to a level of importance that exceeds visual enjoyment?

I was recently talking to a man who survived a brush with death. Not long into the conversation, he began to talk about God…that he was O.K. with God…that he knew God because he spent a lot of time with Him. Knowing he never had been a religious man, I responded, "Oh really? How do you know Him? Where do you spend time with Him?" (Because of my vocation, I've heard just about every method of 'knowing God' imaginable, and I had a pretty good idea which one he was about to give me. I wasn't wrong.) He responded as he pointed out the window at the mountains, "See those mountains? That's how I know Him…that's where I spend time with Him."

I thought for a second and looked at an oil painting by Fred Fellows hanging on the wall. "Do you know Fred Fellows?" I asked.

"Oh sure!" he fired back. "We've spent a lot of time together through the years at rodeos, roping and fooling around with horses."

I then asked him, "What if you walked into a businessman's office in New York City, saw one of Fred's paintings on the wall and asked him 'Do you know Fred Fellows?'; if he said, 'Oh sure! He and I are close. I spend a lot of time with him, sitting next to this picture!', wouldn't you say to him, 'Wait a minute! You don't know a man just by sitting next to something he created!'?"

In the same way that someone does not know the artist simply by sitting next to one of his paintings, we cannot expect to know God by spending time with things He created. That error of thought would be bad enough, but an even greater issue is at stake. In the Apostle Paul's letter to the believers in Rome, he made a clear distinction between the Creator and things He created and warned of the danger of loving the creation more than the Creator:

For the truth about God is known to them instinctively. God has put this knowledge in their hearts. From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God. Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. The result was that their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they became utter fools instead. Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies. So they worshiped the things God made but not the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever. (Romans 1:19-22,25 NLT)

Do we, the people in this country today, love the mountains? …the lakes and rivers? …the forests? ...the Bull trout? …the grizzlies? …the wolves? Without question, we do. Do we, the people in this country today, love them more than God who created them? Have we become the kind of people Paul warned against, claiming to be wise, but becoming utter fools instead, worshipping the things God made but not the Creator himself?

God created all these things for our enjoyment, but are we willing to forfeit knowing Him because we choose instead to worship His creation?

I trust in the LORD for protection. So why do you say to me, "Fly to the mountains for safety! I look up to the mountains-- does my help come from there? My help comes from the LORD, who made the heavens and the earth! (Psalms 11:1, 121:1-2 NLT)