MOUNTAINS

Only a few things in this world deserve to be called mountains.  Towering at least 2,000 feet above sea level, mountains cover a fifth of earth’s land area, while submarine ranges spread over most of the sea floor. 

These natural elevations in the earth’s crust generally form by folding, faulting or volcanic activity.  At an elevation of 19,347 feet, Ecuador’s Cotopaxi dwarfs all other active volcanos.  The highest peak in North America is Alaska’s Mt Mckinley (20,320 feet), while at 29,028 feet, the highest  mountain in the world remains Mt.Everest in the Himalayas. 

As friction from subducting plates begins to build, some mountains crack wide open, spewing lava, steam, ash and poisonous gases.  Before May 1980, Mt. Saint Helens rose to 9,677 feet above sea level.  Her explosion blasted more than 1,000 feet off her peak and triggered a series of disasters: flash floods and mudslides, clouds of ash spreading all over the world, over 100 square miles of denuded forests.  More than 150 miles of trout and salmon streams were destroyed, along with 26 lakes.  Sixty-six persons and an estimated 2 million animals died in the blast.  Yet the Mt.Saint Helens disaster pales in comparison to others.  A late-night eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in Columbia in 1985 sent a wave of mud across the town of Armero, killing 23,000 sleeping citizens.  And a 1902 eruption of Mount Pelee on Martinique released a blast of hot gases that killed all but two of the town’s 30,000 residents.  Who can grasp the power of an angry mountain?

AND YET…

God has merely to look at the earth, and it trembles; He touches the mountains, and they smo,e (Psalm 104:32).  Massive as mountains are, He moves them without their knowing it and overturns them in his anger (Job 9:5).  By His infinite wisdom and power He created the world’s peaks (Psalm 65:6) as a picture of His righteousness (Psalm 36:6).  When we gaze at them we should think of Him, and along with the Psalmist declare to our Lord,

“YOU ARE RESPELNDENT WITH LIGHT, MORE MAJESTIC THAN MOUNTAINS RICH WITH GAME.”

(Psalm 76:4)

“How Majestic is Thy Name”, 2001.  www.newleafpress.net