The unbearably oppressive weight sat so heavily upon my over-burdened chest that it stifled my breath and pushed visible waves of panic through my tense, exhaustion-stricken body. With every laboriously passing day, this inescapable mountain continued to form from the inevitable collision of the continent-sized disappointments floating hopelessly in my heart.
Even my eyelids now felt immovable beneath the ever-increasing layers of pain-filled circumstances filling my days, making it a desperate struggle to pry them open every morning. I shuddered to think that soon I would no longer be able to console myself with the Psalmist David’s comforting declaration that I could at least “lift my eyes to the hills where my help comes from” even when I couldn’t lift my sorrowfully cemented body from the floor.
“I am against you, you destroying mountain, you who destroy the whole earth,” declares the LORD. “I will stretch out my hand against you, roll you off the cliffs, and make you a burned-out mountain.” Jeremiah 51:25 (NIV).
Many of us have inexplicably found ourselves under the crushing weight of a “destroying mountain” invisibly forming in the gloomy terror of unforeseen circumstances far beyond our ability to control. Stone after stone of rejection, sickness, betrayal, abandonment, and heartbreak, piling impedingly up into a terrifying “mountain” that situates decidedly upon our hearts, hindering our movements and stealing our breath!
However, I am so thankful that we serve a God who sees these “destroying mountains” from afar and zealously stretches out His hand against them! Not only can He roll their incalculable weight from our hearts as Jeremiah describes, but it’s from this very rubble of anguish and loss that He chooses to rebuild! The Biblical account of the spiritually industrious prophet, Nehemiah, speaks loudly to this beautiful truth. Nehemiah was living as a cupbearer to a foreign king when he heard of the sad ruination of his ancestral city, Jerusalem. News came to him that the once treasured, triumphant city so brilliantly displaying the manifested delight of God in His people had been figuratively, and quite physically, buried underneath an avalanche of sin and idolatry!
Nehemiah was so distraught by this news that he could not keep the sorrow of his heart from seeping into his usually joyful countenance. The king asked after the cause of Nehemiah’s sorrow and the heavily burdened prophet responded, “Why should my face not look sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” Nehemiah 2:3. (NIV). Fortunately, for Nehemiah and all of us, the eternal favor of our great God does not dissipate or disappear even in the most destructive environments or disastrous of circumstances. David powerfully proclaims in Psalm 102:
“You will rise up and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to show her favor the appointed time has come.” (Vs.3)
“For Your servants delight in her stones and take pity on her dust.” (Vs.14)
“So the nations will fear the name of the LORD, and all the kings of the earth will fear Your glory.” (Vs.15)
“For the LORD will rebuild Zion; He has appeared in His glory.” (Vs.16)
God’s Word tells us that He delightedly chooses the dust and debris of our greatest defeats to display his glorious redemptive power! And God doesn’t just do it FOR us, He does it WITH us, of which Nehemiah’s testimony is profound proof! As the king’s cupbearer, Nehemiah had the enviable honor of tasting the wine of the king before it was poured out.
Being the cupbearer of the king, in that day, was considered formal identification as a royal officer and a physical demonstration of the king’s favor. In the same wise, we that are carrying the “new wine” of the Holy Ghost, as poured out in the book of Acts in the New Testament, are operational cupbearers to the King of Kings! The Holy Ghost seals us with the authority of our King and facilitates His power through us! However, in Nehemiah Chapter 4, we see that even as a chosen hand of God, opposition remains. After journeying on the king’s authority to Jerusalem, Nehemiah soon discovers notable opposition gathering on the periphery of his noble rebuilding efforts.
“What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they make sacrifice? Will they finish it in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?” Nehemiah 4:2 (NKJV).
The answer to that arrogantly posed question by Nehemiah’s opposition, and to any other jeering foe rearing in our own lives, should be a resounding, “Yes”! We will forcefully rise from the heaping mountain that should have brought about our demise and we will bring revival to the kingdom of God, for He promised us in Jeremiah, “I will stretch out my hand against you, roll you off the cliffs, and make you a burned-out mountain.”
It is then that we have the same amazing opportunity that Nehemiah did to build from the indisputable testimonies of what God has done in our own lives to catalyze revival in our churches, cities, and spheres of influence! By doing so, that dreaded “destroying mountain” of which we once so despaired, is transformed into Mount Zion! An indestructible habitation of testimony and praise unto our God, who once and for all rolled over all opposition the day He rolled that stone from His empty tomb!
“You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm… But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem… to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven.” Hebrews 12:18-23 (NIV).
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