Still thinking about mountains…

As I said last week, when we get to our home in the Western Cape, we spend a great deal of time just reveling in the magnificent Outeniqua mountains that form a natural barrier separating the verdant Garden Route where we live from the arid Karoo just 40 kilometers away.  The magnificent George Pass is a sensory delight of undulating green-clad slopes dotted with the exotic-looking rocks that are part of the geology here. Then, just as one reaches the highest point, the road drops steeply into the khaki scrubland and heat of the semi-desert on the other side, dotted with sheep and ostriches 😊.

This is big-sky country, with unhindered views hundreds of miles in all directions. These vistas are knit together by another huge range of mountains etching the bright blue sky with their sharp outlines in a360-degree miracle of splendor.

Yesterday we took a day out for a trip to the Karoo, just because we can! These are views we never tire of, and as my soul breathed in the beauty, I found myself singing the old songs and hymns I grew up with that talk about rocks and mountains. And before long, I was meditating on Psalm 125v2:

“As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people both now and forevermore.”

I think it’s the first time that I really grasped the immensity of this statement. What love and grace! This picture, that the King of heaven surrounds us with himself, with all the strength implicit in mountains, moves me deeply. And it is not just for “now”, which is profoundly comforting, but it is “for evermore”, which is cause for great hope!

I read a news headline today that said the most researched topic on the internet recently is climate anxiety! And I am reminded that the Word says, in the last days the hearts of men will give up because of being afraid of what is coming on the earth. (Luke 21v26)

Be encouraged my friends! “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3v17-19)