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Last Wednesday morning, I had what felt to be a divine encounter. Just writing those words sounds so hyper-spiritual that it makes me uneasy. When someone conveys a divine encounter to me, it’s easy to either feel a little jealous of God’s work in their lives, or discount the so-called spiritual event. Sometimes I even have the skeptical response of “yeah right,” when someone talks about a direct encounter with the Divine.  But I believe in divine encounters, I believe they happen often, I believe that I have missed sensing them, and I believe that you may feel exactly as I do. There is noise in my life and there is noise in yours, and if we are not careful, we just may miss the significance of moments that are designed by God for our good.  As you read about the small divine encounter that penetrated me last week, will you simply have the faith of a child to believe that God still speaks, and He has a lot to say to you?

A couple of weeks ago my reading took me to a passage of Scripture that is very familiar. You have probably heard and read of mountain-moving faith. The problem for me, and presumably for you, is that I often look at my mountains as more powerful than my faith. Therefore, there are too few mountains in my life that are cast into the sea! As I read over Mark 11:22-24 and considered it in my prayer time, something penetrated me. There is a particular area of weakness in my life I had never really looked at in light of that passage. But on that specific day, I determined that it was right for me to apply the passage to the specific issue of struggle that I sensed God wanted me to overcome. The context of saying to the mountain, “Go throw yourself into the sea,” became personal.  It became for me a burning bush kind of moment.

Mark 11:22-24
Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God. I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.

This passage is contained within the broader context of the withered fig tree that Jesus cursed.  In a seemingly abrupt turn, He speaks of mountain-moving faith.  Obviously there is a purpose in how God designed this passage with a fig tree, the concept of faith, mountains cast into the sea, believing and not doubting… all contained in a few verses.  A mountain being removed has affected me deeply over the last couple of weeks.  My view of this passage had always been … the big “out there” sort of mountain, not my personal internal mountain.  So I determined to pray believing that God’s will was for the mountain to be removed.  The passage came to mind again last Wednesday morning and I reviewed it … then my divine encounter!

I was driving to work and turned on a new Sirius satellite station my wife shared with me on vacation.  I heard only the end of a song. The words went like this – “Wait for the mountain to be removed!” The lyrics were spoken twice and the song was over.  You may be skeptical, but to me it was a divine encounter. To top it off, Thursday night late I was preparing for a meeting, and I looked at a book on prayer — wouldn’t you know, I turned to pages that quoted the Matthew passage relating to the same issue.  Then Friday morning on the way to work (this is truthful), I was listening to a song on my new favorite station and the song said words like this – “The Lord will move mountains if you’ll only ask.”  I had to pull over and write those words down. You may think I am just looking for something to validate what I believe God is doing in me (that’s okay), but He has got my attention … and I believe in divine encounters.  And I believe that through faith, He can remove my mountain.

I guess the best challenge from my experiences to your heart is this … Do you have any mountains that need moving? Do you believe that the mountain can be moved?  If so, would you stop right now, and with a yielded heart to His will, turn the mountain over to Him. I can’t tell you His answer, but I can tell you, He will honor a yielded heart … and I know He is bigger than any mountain … and divine encounters do happen.