Give Me this Mountain

Faith for the heights ahead

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves — Edmund Hillary

The mountain is part of you

At sixty-five, when many people were settling into retirement, Colonel Harland Sanders stood at the foot of his own mountain.

In Gethsemane, in the final hours before the cross, Jesus faced His mountain. The weight of the moment pressed so heavily on Him that His sweat was like drops of blood. He agonised in prayer. Christ understood the assignment, but that did not make it any easier. He still had His mountain to face. These were His very words: “My Father, if it is possible, take this cup of suffering from me! Yet not what I want, but what you want”.

Few people want to be associated with a mountain.

But not Caleb. At eighty-five, he literally asked for one. Caleb had a different spirit. He took life head-on, choosing the hard ground others feared to tread. He dared to open doors others wouldn’t. He survived an entire generation, while all those above twenty who doubted perished in the wilderness.

The common thread between Colonel Sanders, Caleb, and Jesus is this: they understood that the mountain was part of their assignment. It was part of their purpose.

The call of purpose was worth it, thanks to the mountain they faced.

Some mountains are not obstacles; they are assignments. Caleb stood at eighty-five years old and asked not for comfort, but for conquest: “Give me this mountain.” He chose the territory others feared, the place where giants lived, and walls stood tall. Faith does not always ask for easier roads. Sometimes it asks for higher ground. And Caleb knew this.

“You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible”. Matthew 17:20.

“Some mountains are not obstacles to avoid, but promises to possess.”

Mountain of opportunity

The writer of Hebrews says of Christ: “Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross…” Hebrews 12:2.

What did Jesus see?

He saw redemption.

He saw salvation.

He saw generations yet unborn finding their way back to God.

He saw opportunity where others saw unbearable suffering.

There was no other way to accomplish it, and no one else could do it. “Salvation is found in no one else…” Acts 4:12

The cross was a giant mountain. Yet Christ embraced it, because beyond the pain was redemption.

Colonel Sanders also stood before his mountain.

Like Caleb, he refused to let age, rejection, or delay define his future. He had lost his business, had little money, and only a recipe for fried chicken and an unshakable belief that it still had value. He knocked on doors repeatedly, facing rejection after rejection, yet he kept going. Eventually, that massive mountain became what the world now knows as KFC.

He could have chosen the easier route: give up, work for someone else, or quietly disappear into retirement. But he saw the mountain as an opportunity to reach the summit.

There is favour. Yes! There is grace. Yes! But none of these eliminates the effort required to reach the peak.

Do you see a mountain or an opportunity? Some see a new height; others see only a mountain. Some see a new business opportunity, others see a limitation. Caleb saw a new land to conquer. Others saw war and death. Some would have called it a day when the Roman soldier yelled: “…if you are the Son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross!” But Christ hung on the cross, flesh pierced and blood gushing out. He endured the cross and paid the ultimate price for humanity’s redemption.

Your mountain today

The mountain is not the end of the road. It is the way through.

After forty-five years, Caleb approached Joshua for a fresh challenge. Caleb was already a national hero, but he was relentless. He wanted more.

He walked up to Joshua and said, “You know the word which the Lord said to Moses the man of God concerning you and me in Kadesh Barnea. I was forty years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as it was in my heart. Nevertheless, my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the Lord my God. So Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children’s forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God.’ And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, as He said, these forty-five years, ever since the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness; and now, here I am this day, eighty-five years old. As yet, I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in. Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day; for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and that the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said.”

What mountain stands before you today? That may be your next big thing.

The difference between you and the people you admire is often the willingness to climb what others avoid. What looks like your hardest challenge today may be the very doorway to your greatest purpose tomorrow. The mountain is not against you. It may be calling you upward.

Mountains are real, but the greater challenge is often the one within. The inner doubt that locks us out of new realities. The voice of limitation. The pool of despondency. The failures of the past. The fear of failing again.

The mountain within is often a greater threat than the mountain before us. At the end of the day, as Edmund Hillary rightly said, “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” Before Caleb could possess the mountain before him, he had already conquered the doubt within him. Before Colonel Sanders knocked on countless doors, he had first overcome the temptation to give up. Before Christ endured the cross, He had settled His will in Gethsemane. Overcoming fear and doubt does not mean there will be none. It means you step over your fear and doubt and get things done.

This is the mountain every great life must first overcome. If we conquer the mountain within today, a whole new world of experience awaits at the summit.

For every mountain before us and every fear within us, the Word still speaks:

“Who are you, O great mountain?
Before Zerubbabel, you shall become a plain.”

What stands before you today will not stand forever.

By faith, by courage, and by the Spirit of God, every mountain can become level ground.

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