When Mountains Move

In the New Testament, there is a verse that stirs both excitement and unease in my heart—a promise so vast it is at once thrilling and overwhelming. Many of you likely know it well. Jesus, responding to Peter’s astonishment, said:

“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.”
(Mark 11:23)

Since the day I placed my faith in Christ, I have carried this verse as one of the deepest paradoxes of my spiritual journey. It has never been about doubting the truth of His words or questioning the faithfulness of the One who spoke them. That, for me, has always been beyond question. Yet, inwardly, I have often wrestled with the weight of this promise.

If I were to stand before a mountain and command it to be thrown into the sea, would it truly happen? Jesus says it would. But my struggle lies not with the reality of the promise, nor the breathtaking wonder of it, but with the quiet, persistent question: Do I have the courage to speak to the mountain? Do I have that kind of faith? Have I ever paused to measure it—or even dared to try?

Faith, I’ve learned, resists such measurements. Each of us, in our own way, would answer these questions differently, shaped by our personal intimacy with God. Over time, however, a new realization has taken shape in my heart, one that reframes this verse not as a test of spectacular faith but as a window into the true terrain of God’s power.

The Mountains We Overlook

A mountain uprooted and hurled into the sea is a staggering image. Yet, for modern people like us—restless, insatiable, forever seeking the next “miracle”—I wonder if the mountains Jesus speaks of are truly the ones we see rising from the horizon.

Humanity has a remarkable ability to normalize the extraordinary. Imagine for a moment that mountains truly began collapsing into the sea. At first, crowds would gather, journalists would broadcast breathless reports, and pilgrimages to witness the phenomenon would explode. But soon, the headlines would fade, the crowds would thin, and the spectacle would become routine.

That is who we are: beings of unending appetite. Our hearts quickly acclimate, our attention shifts, and we return to our daily obsessions—politics, finances, conflicts, ambitions—forever chasing the next thing. And so, I began to wonder: perhaps the “true mountains” Jesus calls us to confront are not geological but deeply personal.

The Mountains Within

As I revisit this verse, I see the mountains Christ is pointing toward more clearly. They rise not from the earth beneath my feet but from the center of my life—jagged and unrelenting, their roots intertwined with my fears, wounds, and longings.

There have been seasons when I longed to see these mountains torn away, hurled far into the depths of some quiet sea, never to loom over me again. And when I think of it this way, the miracle Jesus promises begins to take on a deeper, more intimate beauty.

For perhaps the truest miracles are not always the ones that make headlines but the quiet transformations that mark our ordinary days—the pride surrendered, the bitterness uprooted, the fear replaced with trust. These moments often arrive unnoticed: the storm that didn’t consume us, the fire that didn’t burn us, the deep waters that didn’t drown us.

If we are honest, most of us have witnessed such miracles more often than we realize. We simply fail to name them as such.

The Greater Promise

This world, ruled by darkness, is relentless in its demands. It will always take more than it gives, whispering that we are powerless, that our struggles are ours to carry alone. But Christ offers another reality—one where our identity as children of God calls us to stand tall before our mountains and speak with unshakable confidence.

The cross of Christ is not just the story of past victory; it is the down payment of a greater triumph that is even now unfolding in our lives. Because of that, we can lift our heads, fix our gaze on whatever looms before us, and declare with boldness the promise He gave us:

“Mountain, be lifted up, and be cast into the sea.”

And when that mountain falls—quietly, faithfully, sometimes without fanfare—we remember that this, too, is the hand of God at work.