Head For The Hills

High places have always been valued, not only as sacred places, but as fortresses as well. They give you the obvious strategic advantage of height over your enemy. Isn’t it profound that places of worship become places of battle? Life is a spiritual battle.


When we were in Israel earlier this year (on sabbatical) the tour included a trip to the ancient fortress of Masada.(Pictured)

Masada was one of a number of fortress-palaces built by King Herod the Great. It became the scene of the last holdout of the Jewish rebels as they fled from the Roman army in the first century AD. They held out for three whole years before finally choosing mass suicide over surrender. Maybe you got to see the movie (1981) starring Peter O’Toole as General Cornelius Flavious Silva and Peter Strauss as Eleazar ben Yair.

The defendable quality of ‘high places’ make them very strategic in times of war. They become prizes to be won. Remember Caleb in the book of Joshua … “Give me that mountain.” And then there is that very wise question we need to ask ourselves at those critical points in our lives … “Is this a mountain worth dying on?”

When Florence and I were in Georgia this spring, we got to spend a day at the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park where, in June of 1864, Maj. Gen. William T Sherman’s 100,000 man Union army faced Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s 65,000 confederates. That mountain was one of the last great holdouts before the northern forces moved on the city of Atlanta and burnt it to the ground. I have some pictures of the Battlefield Park but I’m trying really hard to restrain myself here!!!

There is a sense of safety and security that comes from being able to ‘perch’ ourselves on high. I’m sure this is why our two cats (‘Bobby’ & ‘Pumpkin’) like high places too. They like the top of the fridge, or the top of the steps, so that they can look down upon their enemies (usually each other).

When it comes to ‘succeeding’ in life, it’s all about position.

The Bible declares Jesus to be THE King. Consider these passages…

“I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill… I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter… sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet… On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’.” (Psa 2:6-9 ; 110:1 ; Rev 19:16)

Speaking of Christ, Paul writes, “… God exalted him to the highest place and gave him a name that is above every name… and God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over every thing …” (Phil 2:9 ; Eph 1:22)

And what about those of us who put our trust in Him? The little phrase -‘In Christ’ - is one of the most often repeated statements to describe the ‘position’ of the believer in the New Testament.

Check this out – “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus… ” (Eph 2:6)

How high is that?!

And, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Col 3:1-4)

A word really comes to mind here – security.

And here is one more passage just to ‘drive the point home’, and I have no doubt that God wants to have this point ‘driven home’:

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us…” (Rom 8:35,37)


Our victory ; our security, is in Him. He is ‘the lifter of our heads’.

High Places

I had a mountain-top experience this past week, thanks to our church family who gave us a gift certificate for two nights at the wonderful Stonehame Chalets on Fitzpatrick Mountain near Scotsburn, Nova Scotia. Beautiful eh!

The certificate was actually a gift last year, but an early ice storm prevented us from using it then, so we used it for our anniversary this year.

I like high places. I’m thinking that you can relate. There’s just something about being up there.

In ancient times, mountains were believed to be sacred places. Mount Sinai comes to mind for example. It was called ‘the holy mountain’. ‘Holy men’ always seemed to have a mountain, whether it was Moses, or Elijah, or Jesus when He took His disciples up the mountain to pray and was there transfigured before their very eyes when they heard a voice from heaven and saw two other men there with Him. Who were they? Why, they were Moses and Elijah! Go figure!

Then there were the ‘high places’ that seemed to be everywhere throughout the land of Canaan, that were dedicated to the worship of various Canaanite deities; those places which seemed to have such an allure for the Israelites that they ended up being led into the idolatry that resulted in their exile from the land. There is something alluring about a high place; something about ascending to a peak or a ridge, that creates in us a feeling which we seem to have a longing for.


When Florence and I were in Athens this past winter (on Sabbatical) this was the night view from the rooftop of the hotel where we stayed; the Hotel Attalos.

I had always identified the Acropolis with Athens only. I hadn’t realized that the word simply means ‘hill’ and that ancient peoples tended to build temples on every hill they could find. For example, I got a picture of the acropolis at Corinth. Prior to this, I hadn’t even known that such existed. I knew there had been temples there but...

High places seem somehow to be holy places; places of worship. I know, as a Christian, that the true God is present everywhere, and that we don’t need to go anywhere to worship Him (Jn 4). He is just as present in the world of the microscope as He is in the world of the telescope. And the New Testament makes it very clear that we are His temple (1Cor 3). But I still like high places.

Mountains make great places of worship. They make great places to get away to; great places to think and to pray, and to allow God to lift us up, to rise above it all, even if only for a time so that our problems don’t seem quite as big and our God seems a whole lot bigger. They are places of revelation and truth. Places we can retreat to and sort things out; where we can seek God and get reoriented to His perspective on our lives.

I think for the Christian, the mountains call to us to lift up our eyes to God. Have you ever noticed how every single mountain, every high place, points in the same direction?!

I am reminded of a saying I heard one time. It went like this:

If you want to be distressed, look within
If you want to be defeated, look back
If you want to be distracted, look around
If you want to be dismayed, look ahead
If you want to be delivered, look up!

There is definitely something basic and yet totally profound about all of this. If you want to be delivered, look up.

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
Psalm 121

You Just Never Know

Some days you just have to wonder don’t you? Ah – ‘the best-laid plans of mice and men’… (thank you to Robby Burns) … just when things were going good and moving right along…

I took this picture a while back one day when I was walking to my car and the scene caught my eye. It seemed so, so, so …hmmm… Shakespearean maybe? Tragic.

Living in a world where everything is uncertain; where at any given moment of time, anything can change; any intention of our hearts can suddenly come to a screeching halt. Well, it’s down right disconcerting isn’t it!

The Psalmist says that “the length of our days is seventy years, or eighty, if we have the strength…” And he prays that God would, “teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psa 90)

And yet, James reminds us that life is so uncertain that at any moment of time, anything can happen, or not happen. He says that we need to learn to qualify everything we plan to do with an attitude of recognition, that, at ANY time God reserves the prerogative to change our plans. (See James 4:13-15)

This is so absolute! Nothing is exempt from it. Every single thing can go wrong! Or at least ‘go wrong’ from where we sit. Personally, I don’t like this much. I guess, philosophically, I can accept it all because I believe in a Sovereign God whose providence is the only refuge I have in this world of troubling uncertainty. But experientially on a day to day, or rather moment to moment basis, it might be the hardest thing there is to come to terms with.

So how do you handle personal disappointment? Maybe I could hear from some you on this one?

Truth in a Public Washroom

Last week I found myself ‘in town’ for some errands and slipped by the Fair Trade Café on Inglis Street for a coffee and to do some reading while I was waiting for my next appointment.

Don’t know if you’ve visited the Fair Trade Café before, or not, but the coffee there is really good and the ambiance works for me.

I got a surprise when I went into the restroom though – coffee will do that to you – I go in, and there is this large plague like poster on the wall in front of me. It’s right straight on in front of you when you are doing your business. Just seemed like something that was a little bit, ah, can I say ‘spiritual’, for such a ‘secular’ environment like that.

It was an encouraging surprise though. I guess every once in a while a place in the culture around us opens up a crack and some profound truth slips in. I mean, think of it! How counter culture is this - ‘He who dies with the most toys still dies’! - right there in the washroom of the Fair Trade Café, a message that Jesus Himself would be pleased to own. In fact, I think He pretty much does. Check out the story of the rich fool in Luke’s gospel chapter 12. Pretty much the same idea. Not the kind of ‘feel good’, ‘don’t say anything negative’, ‘stay clear of certain subjects’ kind of stuff that we usually associate with sales. I guess that is why it was so refreshing to see. It kind of gave me some hope for our culture.

There are cracks there people. They are there and we need to look for them and slip in some truth whenever we get a chance. After all, the truth is the truth, and even when we try and suppress it, or bury it, or distort it, the truth has a way of just kind of slipping through it all and ringing in our ears.

I’m going to stop here as I could really start to ramble on here about this one. The truth is the truth. It rings true. Enough said about that.

Better Together

Our theme for 2008 has been ‘Better Together’ and I regret that we haven’t been able to ‘work’ that theme more because it really is a good theme. I think we are making progress in terms of this whole communication thing and I’m hoping that we are getting better at doing life together.

The present series of messages we are presenting is on ‘Growing A Culture’ and one of the points I tried to make up front is that we are not necessarily ‘better together’. We can actually be worse! (See 1Cor 11:11:17) Whether we actually are better together will be determined by the health of our culture and that will be determined by our real beliefs and values; not what we say they are, not what we write out in a brochure, not what we try and project on the surface, but what they truly are as is evidenced by what we do and how we treat each other. We have to be willing to go deep to evaluate these things.

Blogs are supposed to be personal. That’s the whole idea. That is also the whole idea when it comes to God. He wants to get personal. We need to be willing to deal directly with God and His truth. We need to allow Him to search our hearts. It doesn’t get any more personal than that.

I read a quote the other day. It was in the September issue of ‘Worship Leader’ magazine. It was from Alan Alda who is quoted as saying, “Listening means being able to be changed by what you hear.” I like his idea. Though I would be tempted to say it more like, “Listening means being WILLING to be changed by what you hear.”

It reminded me of how Jesus was always saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Kind of a curious statement! We all have ears so what does it mean? Could it mean that to really ‘hear’ involves the willingness to be changed by what we hear?

I think Alan Alda might be onto something. It’s all about being willing to allow the truth to judge us rather than standing in judgment of the truth. If the truth of God hasn’t changed us, then we haven’t really heard it.