We have an amusement park a couple hours from here called Cedar Point, and they are well known for their roller coasters. It has 17 of them – 50,727 feet of roller coaster tracks to be exact. Oh the thrills!
The tallest one that was there when I was a kid was the Gemini at 125 feet tall. I thought it was a skyscraper. When I worked there, the tallest one was the Magnum XL 200, which was 205 feet tall. Still pretty impressive!
Now, the tallest one is the Top Thrill Dragster, measuring 420 feet high with speeds of 120 mph. Yea…I don’t ride that one.
The Gemini looks tall……until you compare it to the Magnum 200 XL, which looks tall….until you compare it to the Top Thrill Dragster.
Do you get the picture? It’s really all about perspective. It’s all in how you look at it.
In I Samuel 17, we see the story of David and Goliath. How many times have I read this story? Hundreds at least. But it never gets old.
In verse 8, we see Goliath’s perspective of Israel’s army:
Goliath stood and shouted a taunt across to the Israelites. “Why are you all coming out to fight?” he called. “I am the Philistine champion, but you are only the servants of Saul.”
He saw them only as the servants of Saul, which in one respect was true. Saul was their leader.
In verse 11, we see the way Israel saw themselves:
When Saul and the Israelites heard this, they were terrified and deeply shaken.
They saw themselves the same way, servants of Saul, which is why they were terrified. They compared themselves to this giant and saw they didn’t have what it would take to beat him. They compared their natural strength to Goliath’s natural strength and were too afraid to even try. They didn’t even try to fight!
But in verse 26, we see David’s perspective:
“Who is this pagan Philistine anyway, that he is allowed to defy the armies of the living God?”
In David’s eyes, they weren’t just Saul’s servants; they were the army of the Living God! It didn’t matter how big any giant or army was, no one had the power to defeat God.
David knew God was bigger and stronger and that gave him the confidence to run right at him. And win!
In reality, all of the coasters are tall……125’ really is tall. It’s just not as tall as 205’, which isn’t as tall as 425′. And our mountain may really be big, but it will never be bigger than God!
When we compare ourselves to our mountain, we’ll always see it as bigger than we are. We’ll be filled with fear and it will keep us from even entering the fight. We won’t pray. We won’t speak to and command it to go. We won’t even try, and the enemy will win by default.
No! We need to compare our mountain to the strength and might of the mountain-mover. When we see it through the eyes of the all-powerful Creator who said, “You tell this mountain to move and I’ll throw it into the sea!”, we won’t even hesitate.
If you’re afraid of your mountain today, maybe you’re comparing it to your own ability instead of God’s. Just shift your gaze from the size of your mountain to the size of your God. Go ahead and enter the fight. Speak…pray…stand…and watch your mountain crumble into the sea.
