You Are the Mountain

Walking around these walls

I thought by now they'd fall

But you have never failed me yet

Waiting for change to come

Knowing the battle’s won

For you have never failed me yet

Eleven plastic chairs formed a disorganized circle around a metal pole in the front of the church from which a speaker hung, quietly playing an Elevation Worship album. Eleven of us sat, some with heads bowed, some with raised faces. Some sang quietly along, some listened, some prayed. Some sat with closed eyes, and some looked around at the rest of the church where people were taking communion, reading scripture, writing on the floor with chalk and sitting at tables making art for God. 

Holy chaos, it was called. Six different stations, six different avenues for meeting with God during the youth service that night. 

The fire outside had already faded to sleepy embers, but every time someone threw a folded or crumpled written prayer in the place where the fire had been, orange flames would engulf it for a few seconds, just long enough to make the paper, and the prayer, vanish up in smoke. 

Christian and I had taken communion together early in the evening. Having grown up in a Lutheran church, my first 250 communions were administered by a pastor, and only a pastor. I find something deeply intimate in now being able to give and receive communion from my husband, who I must admit is also a pastor of sorts. Kneeling together before the imposing cross in the back of the church, we laced our fingers and thanked Jesus for his sacrifice, for giving us such a horrible and beautiful gift that we get to remember in this way. I asked for forgiveness for my pride, and that Jesus would humble me before him and others. We broke the matzah, drank the juice, and vacated the mat to make space for the next worshippers to kneel before the cross. 

After visiting a few of the six stations, I pulled up a chair by the speaker as quietly as I could, so as not to interrupt the teenagers deep in their own meditation or worship. 

Your promise still stands

Great is your faithfulness, faithfulness

I’m still in your hands

This is my confidence

You’ve never failed me yet

My closed eyes welled with tears as the truth of the lyrics washed over me. I smiled as a few teenagers began to sing along, quietly but not timidly, in harmonies they had learned from leading this song in their own worship team. 

I’ve seen you move, you move the mountains

And I believe I’ll see you do it again

You made a way, where there was no way

And I believe I’ll see you do it again

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I began to pray fervently for the youth around me. “Dear God, you know things have been dry and dormant here for a long time. You know we need you, your Spirit,  your life. Revive us! Revive them—give them your life! I have seen you move them before and I see you doing it again tonight, just like you can move mountains, you can move the hearts of these teenagers, you can—“

“You are the mountain.” 

That shut me up real quick. 

God has a way with words. It’s not often that I hear something so distinct and direct from God, but when I do, he is to the point, and he is usually telling me that I am wrong. 

No, it wasn’t wrong for me to pray for the teenagers or to ask God to fill them with his Spirit. What was wrong was assuming that because they were rebellious, immature, prone-to-peer-pressure young adults, they were the ones who needed God to move them. They housed the problem that needed to be fixed. 

That’s what I get for asking God to humble me, right? 

I am the mountain. 

Good to know.