Mountain Man

At this very moment thanks to the great innovations of the people at IBM and their highly advanced thinkpad laptop computers I am typing this while driving into the beautiful yet confusing state of West Virginia. Going through this state will astound me and weird me out at the same time. The people here, well in certain places, I know for a fact are just weird and backward, yet the scenery as I see it is amazing. Valley towns scatter the Blue Ridge and they are literally blue. I am looking at it right now. All I can think about is the original white men that trailed this topography. The hunting and tracking they had to do is amazing to me. Most of their day consisted of gathering things to help them survive. Especially for the West Virginia area I think about how hard it must have been for the horse or man to go up and down these mountains.
Of course anyone from the Rockies would say that what I am talking about is child’s play. But my point is this that the Blue Ridge mountaineer would have to climb a few mountains a day, following the deer he killed or find the traps he laid. Whereas on the other hand for the Colorado Mountain man to climb one of those huge snow capped mountains is a great feat and would be an excursion. Those mountains out west are serious business indeed. I have seen them. My buddy Adam got married in Alaska and those mountains are literally the biggest things I have ever laid my eyes on. (besides the sun of course). I have never witnessed a bigger object on this earth. The accomplishment of actually climbing one of these mountains must be quite fulfilling.
I wish I could be a mountain man. The only start I have is this scraggly beard. Ooh another “blue ridge” mountain. Let’s see…yep…still really big. Still proud of my ancestors for traversing them for survival.
Now what is a good blog post without good spiritual conversation?
Lately…ok for the past year or so…I have tended to be quite judgmental. Quietly though in my mind I quickly find sin in people. “They are doing that because they are insecure.” “He said that because he is prideful” Then about two weeks ago God rocked me. I was in a group prayer setting and one of the men in the group started his prayer. I was in one of those condemning moods at the time and I fell out of it fast when he prayed and thanked God for saving his soul despite his wretchedness…yes he said wretchedness. Immediately in my mind the words faith of a mustard seed ran across the screen of my inner monologue. It almost startled me. All he had was his faith and he knew it. Despite any faults I fight in people, Christ sees their faith. Through the thick rain forest of our sin and idolatry Christ wields his machete hacking His way through with our faith in focus. If that faith is only as big as a mustard seed (very small, think ant’s head) Christ will see it and it saves our soul, indeed a large mountain to move.