The View From The Mountain — Sunday Thought For The Day

The following was written for February 21, 2016, “Our Daily Bread” by David Roper.
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Our valley in Idaho can be very cold in the winter. Clouds and fog roll in and blanket the ground, trapping frigid air under warmer layers above. But you can get above the valley. There’s a road nearby that winds up the flank of Shafer Butte, a 7,500-foot mountain that rises out of our valley. A few minutes of driving and you break out of the fog and emerge into the warmth and brilliance of a sunlit day. You can look down on the clouds that shroud the valley below and see it from a different point of view.

Life is like that at times. Circumstances seem to surround us with a fog that sunlight cannot penetrate. Yet faith is the way we get above the valley—the means by which we “set [our] hearts on things above” (Col. 3:1). As we do, the Lord enables us to rise above our circumstances and find courage and calmness for the day. As the apostle Paul wrote, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (Phil. 4:11).

We can climb out of our misery and gloom. We can sit for a time on the mountainside and through Christ who gives us strength (v. 13) we can gain a different perspective.

Although I can’t always see You or what You’re doing, Lord, I rest in Your love for me.

Faith can lift you above your fears.

INSIGHT:
Paul begins this section of his letter to the church at Philippi with the Greek word loipon (finally), signaling that this is his conclusion to the subject he’s been dealing with. In previous verses the apostle has been urging his readers to live lives that are free from anxiety and quarreling. Their interactions with one another are to be marked by prayer, thankfulness, gentleness, unity, and peace. But his final word in this section goes beyond outward behavior. It deals with attitudes of the heart and mind. Ponder heavenly things, he tells them. Think well and deeply about things that are noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy.

READ:Philippians 4:8-13
8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

9 Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

10 But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity.

11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

12 I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.