Faith that Moves Mountains
Mountain Moving Faith by Gordon Moyes from the book Australian Stories for the Heart.
What mountain are you facing? Australians know much about moving mountains. We have shifted Mount Tom Price, Iron Knob, Mount Hamersley, Mount Isa, the Snowy Mountains and Broken Hill. We can shift mountains by using heavy machinery. But how can you shift mountains by faith?
With faith you require only two things: work and persistence!
I had to shift a hill once. In 1972 my wife and I purchased an elevated one-storey house. I decided to turn it into a two-storey house. As I could not lift it up, I decided to go down. The house was 45 feet long and 25 feet wide. We had to go down about four to six feet. There was not enough room under the house for a machine so it had to be done with a shovel.
I said to the mountain of earth, ‘Move from here to there!’ The Lord said to me, ‘Get a pick, a shovel and a wheelbarrow.’
I got under the house and started digging. I filled up a wheelbarrow and wheeled it to the front. We had half an acre of land on a gentle hill, so I started building up the bottom of the hill. Then another barrow. And another. Then fifty. Every Monday for months, with a pick, a hovel and a barrow, I said to the Lord, ‘Move this mountain’ and the Lord said, ‘Wheel the barrow!’
Gradually I began to see a hole under the house. It was then I discovered a second great truth about dirt. More comes out of a hole than was in there originally. A hundred barrows of earth levelled the front lawn. Two hundred barrows of earth meant that the block beside us was now level. Meanwhile, we had to bring in truckloads of sand and metal. I mixed and barrowed hundreds of loads of concrete.
Then I fitted in new house stumps and a huge steel beam under the floor. I installed a dozen windows and built dividing walls. In went the first rumpus room, then the laundry. Through the earth moving the house began to grow. After two years I had shifted enough earth to add a garage and a workshop. I kept saying to the Lord, ‘Move this mountain,’ and the Lord replied each time, ‘Keep wheeling. You and I are in this together.’ (I said, ‘Yes, Lord, but I’, the one who’s getting hot!’)
Slowly the front lawn area became smooth. Then came more concrete and finally the big, double rumpus room. Seven years after I began digging, the hill was at last removed. We finished the walls. We put up the table tennis table. The furniture was in and the carpet was down, and we had a house double its original size and triple its value. Everything was beautiful.
Then, just as I finish, Wesley Mission said, ‘Come to Sydney!’
When we put our Victorian home on the market, an interested purchaser said, ‘What a lovely front lawn you have!’ He didn’t know that faith, plus work, plus persistence had doubled the size of a house and turned a hill into a smooth lawn.
You can shift mountains from here to there with faith and persistent work. These were the words of Jesus: ‘If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.’ Matthew 17:20 That is His promise.
I believe that what the mind can conceive and the heart can believe, the will can achieve. All thing are possible to those who have faith. If you don’t think something is possible, you will be right. But if you think it is possible, you will be right! Only faith achieves.