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Turning Mountains into Molehills

Each person faces a twofold challenge in daily life. One is to keep ourselves from making big deals out of little problems. The second is that we learn how to positively manage big problems so they can be resolved. Problems should be resolved; they shouldn’t become our barriers.

Years ago a researcher set out to understand why some people are luckier than others. He wanted to know why certain people found lucky breaks while others failed and ended up being among those counted as unlucky in life. He followed several families for many years and discovered some interesting truths.

Both lucky and unlucky people encountered similar challenges and have common hard breaks, but how people responded to adversity determined the outcome of their misfortune. Some people hit a wall, made an effort, and failed. They tossed their hands up and said, “I tried. This always happens to me.”

Others hit walls, were knocked down, and refused to accept failure. The only real difference between those who found ‘luck’ was how they responded to adversity. The ‘lucky breaks’ didn’t come to the most talented, the most wealthy, or the most charismatic people. The breaks came to those who persevered. Eventually, opportunity presents itself, but it is only seen by those who keep looking for the good behind every circumstance in life.

This is not to say each person faces the exact same circumstances. Some people face hardships that most others will never experience, yet even from the worst environments this truth emerges. Two people from the same difficult environment can have very different outcomes in life. Why do some people overcome the tragedies of life while others in the same environment carry failure into the next generation?

This is often seen in dysfunctional families with two or more children. Each child endures the same harsh environment, but they often have very different outcomes in life. Those who give up will never overcome challenges because they are more focused on the failures in life than the goal that lies ahead. 

It’s all about attitude. Not one of us can predict life and not one of us can prevent challenges, hardships, or adversities. It’s coming to us all. But each person’s attitude determines how they respond to it. Some people turn the slightest problem into a mountain, while others seek to climb over the mountain. There is not one person who has a bad attitude forced upon them. Quite the opposite. We force our attitudes upon every circumstance we encounter. A bad attitude inflates the mountain, while the good attitude creates expectation and hope that is bigger than the mountain.

Let’s consider a few examples in the Bible. One is an example we touched on earlier – the people of the Exodus. God gave His people the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey. It was the land given to Abraham before Israel was enslaved in Egypt. Through many miracles God led the people out of bondage, defeated armies, made a way across the Red Sea, fed and watered them in the desert, and finally led them straight to the promise. In less than two weeks God’s people could have been in the Promised Land.

What was God’s desire? It was to give His promise to His people. And the Lord took them straight from Egypt to the edge of the promise. His promise was, “I have given you this land, I will be with you, and I will fight for you.” But God tested His people with adversity. He sent twelve spies into the land, one representative from each tribe. They returned with good news and bad news. The good news, the land was just as God described it. Flowing with milk and honey, and it is a good land. They brought back many samples as proof.

But there was a problem. Adversity stood between the people and the promise. Let the spies explain the situation for themselves. Look at Numbers 13:33

“There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

Notice the words they chose. We were like grasshoppers in our own sight. This is the challenge you and I face each time problems arise. Why are the problems big? Because we are looking at it through our eyes instead of the Lord’s. 

God destroyed the armies of Egypt, the greatest world power of that day. And He did it without a single man having to fight. Yet now they are afraid of the descendants of Anak? Anak were people of great stature. Admittedly, they were fierce looking warriors, but that was part of the test. Would God’s people put their trust in adversity, or would they trust in the promises of God?

Only two men out of twelve were willing to trust the Lord, Caleb and Joshua. Everyone else went into a panic and turned from the Lord. Because they could not trust the Lord, God swore they would never receive the promise. Other than Caleb and Joshua, not one person saw the Promised Land of God. Because they trusted adversity, the Lord allowed them to choose it. 

While God’s plan was to lead them directly to the promise, they instead wandered forty years through the desert. Adversity was only intended to be a gravel road they had to pass over. Forty years later, Joshua proved God’s original intent, for not one adversity overcame their march toward the promise. Yet an entire generation was lost because they believed the threat over the promise.

To put this in our terms, many of us trust in our problems and allow adversity to turn our hearts from the Lord. This is why few people actually experience what God has in store for them. Like the people escaping Egypt, they can see God’s hand when things go perfectly, but not when they have to trust God to lead them through trouble instead of around it. The Israelites felt that God should have kept trouble away from them.

Isn’t this exactly what most people live out in their lives? A problem arises and they exalt it like a mountain. In their eyes, the problem is huge and it becomes insurmountable. Instead of raising their hands to the Lord, they toss their hands up in surrender to adversity. We must learn to surrender our will to the Lord, not surrender to our problems. 

Adversity may indeed be a big problem and hard to overcome, but that’s okay. God will allow problems bigger than your ability so He can reveal His power to you. It requires no faith if the solution is within our own power. It’s not our battle unless we make it so. We wander through the desert of despair, while every problem weighs down upon us and we find no relief for our souls. Yet the relief is within our grasp, if we’ll just take it. It’s called faith in God. 

Faith is believing the word of the Lord to the point where we are willing to put our trust in Him. Faith was the strength of Job. When in the midst of losing his family, possessions, and health, Job uttered the greatest testimony of faith in the Bible, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”

In the end, what happened in Job’s life? Though he lost much, he gained ten times more. The same is true for you and I. We often get so caught up in what we are losing that we can never receive the abundant promise of what God is giving. When we become bitter over losses, we also are turning from the Lord – who blesses those who endure with faith.

This is the reason for adversity. It’s to prove what is in our hearts. Anyone can trust God when the going is easy and when we’re getting what we want. But let adversity arise and let us feel threatened, and we’ll reveal the truth of what is in our hearts. Adversity reveals whether we are walking by faith in the Spirit, or by the sight and strength of the flesh.

Here’s the real irony of the story of Israel’s rejection of the promise. They withdrew from the Lord because they viewed the giants of Anak as too strong for them. Yet Caleb entered the land as an eighty-five year old man. When they were dividing the inheritance, Caleb requested the mountains where He would feel closer to the Lord. Do you know who inhabited the mountains? Yes. The giants of Anak. Caleb, the oldest man in Israel said, “The Lord will drive them out before me.” He knew they could not stand, and sure enough, he drove them out.

Caleb and Joshua endured the adversities of the desert for forty years while waiting for the promise. Not one time do we see these two men complaining. They patiently waited because at the time God swore that not one of their peers would enter the promise, He also promised they would. They endured in faith, because the promise was real. Look at the words of Hebrews 10:38

Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.”

It’s God’s good pleasure to give you His kingdom, but this is a call to receive it by faith. Those who draw back miss the pleasure of God’s blessing toward them. The opposite is true for those who don’t draw back. The same Lord who made the above statement also said, “This is the victory that overcomes the world – our faith.” 

Like the example of Joshua and Caleb, when we walk in God’s purposes by faith, adversity will arise, but nothing can stand against God’s will. We then will walk in the victory that overcomes the world – our faith in God.

Faith is believing God. Not just intellectually, but actively. It’s the person who is willing to put God’s word to the test and live by it – even in adversity or temptation. We endure because of the joy set before us. This joy is grounded in the promises of God.

The heart which is grounded in the word of the Lord cannot be moved; however, the mountain can be. Look at the promise Christ gave in Matthew 21:21-22

 ²¹ So Jesus answered and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done.
 ²² “And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”

Jesus again used another variation of this teaching in Luke 17:6

So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

Notice how both of these examples focused on immovable objects. Try plucking up a tree and see what happens. It doesn’t budge. The strongest man on earth couldn’t take the trunk of a grown mulberry tree and rip it from the ground, much less cast it anywhere. 

Stand before the mountain of adversity. Can you move it? No. And it isn’t your job to move it. God doesn’t call you to move mountains; He calls you to have faith in His ability to move mountains. It’s not about believing in yourself. You are limited to your own strengths, weaknesses, and limitations. It’s about trusting in the Lord, for according to Jesus, what is impossible with men is possible with God. 

We are not called to speak our will to the mountains. We are called to walk in God’s will and conquer the mountain. The promise is that if God calls us to move an immovable object, it cannot stand if we are walking according to His will. When something stands like a mountain between us and fulfilling God’s calling, we must refuse to consider its strength. We rebuke the challenger of God’s will by declaring God’s purposes and walking where He has called us to walk. We may say, “Be removed,” but unless it’s an answer to God’s call, we aren’t promised the power to remove the mountain. 

This isn’t a promise for us to have the power to fulfill our selfish will, but the promise that if we are walking in God’s purposes, nothing can thwart His will. At times, the Lord will allow you to struggle. This is where faithfulness separates the believer from the one who feels inspired, but continues to live according to the flesh. 

The challenger might be a valley, mountain, the gates of hell, your internal struggles, or any other thing. These may have the power to stand against human abilities, but they cannot prevent God’s hand. If you know God’s purpose for you (and you will if you practice living out the things we’ve discussed so far), then the mountain serves no other purpose than to test you to see if you believe the flesh, or believe the word of God.

Don’t forget the promise, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Do not reverse this. It isn’t Christ who does all things through us, but we do His will through Him. We are not asking God to enter into our plans to fulfill our purposes. We are submitting to His purposes and entering into His work.^[1] When we are in Christ and walking in God’s will, His strength is perfected in our weaknesses. We then have no limitations in Him. You have limitations, but the Lord will complete His plan – and there are no limitations with God.

While the faithless person turns molehills into mountains, and views them as giants in their own eyes, God is calling us to say to the mountains, “Be removed and cast into the sea.” Think of the weight of this truth. 

Unbelief exalts molehills into mountains that defeat us, while faith is the victory that overcomes the world. Through faith, not only are we not exalting the molehills, but we are casting down the mountains. We do so because faith is not in our efforts or our selfish will, but it is in the Lord’s work within us that calls us to walk in the works He prepared beforehand.^[2]

When we are pursuing the purpose of our calling, things will stand in our way. This is assuming we are living according to His purposes. A life without direction is a barrier in itself. But when we see the glory of God’s purpose in our lives, we will also hear the calling to come and follow. But the Lord will allow things to test us and challenge us. This is why we are promised all the good things of His kingdom if we overcome. “To Him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with Me on My throne.” All the greatest promises are to those who overcome.

We overcome our will first, and then we overcome anything that stands in our way of fulfilling God’s call. Fear, frustration, guilt, greed, lust, adversity, and many other struggles will stand as trees and mountains in your way. But as Jesus said, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” 

Through His overcoming, we are also given the faith that overcomes the world.

Life Applications

• Memorize Ephesians 6:5-8.
• How does this passage apply to your life today? How does this principle apply to your career, home life, and responsibilities?
• Come up with a plan now for how you will respond on your job and other responsibilities. 
• How will your positive attitude affect your work and the things you dislike or feel is unfair?
• According to the passage above, what happens when you serve with a good attitude?
• Will the end result be fair?
• What will be the result if you adopt a negative attitude?
• Read Hebrews 10:38. What happens when you allow your heart to draw back from God? What happens to the person who does not draw back, but endures regardless of circumstances?
• Is it possible to live for your purposes and have confidence when adversity blocks your way?
• Evaluate your life and look for areas that need to be surrendered to the will of God.
• Take time to review Life Applications from previous chapters.

^[1] Ephesians 2:10

^[2] Ephesians 2:10