914 No Mountain High Enough

We all know the song “ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low, ain’t no river wide enough, to keep me from getting to you baby.” We think of it as a love song, and it is, but did you know it didn’t start as a love song? The song was written in the 1960’s by a young man who had moved to New York to pursue a dream. That dream had fallen short and he found himself homeless. He looked up at the tall buildings in the city, wondering how he was ever going to climb his way to the top and he said to himself “ain’t no mountain high enough.” Yes, Nick Ashford was speaking to himself. He was speaking to the life he wanted and the goal he was pursuing. There ain’t no mountain high enough to keep me from getting to you. As we know, that song went on to be a wildly successful hit. Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson met while at church in New York, she was there to worship, he was there to get a free hot meal during his struggles, they fell in love, married, and wrote music together for nearly 40 years. Success was theirs. Songs like “I’m Every Woman (it’s all in me – anything you want done baby, I do it naturally)” and “Solid (solid as a rock).” But before all of that, there was a man who had failed, who was homeless, who was going to church only to get a hot meal, who had to look at the mountains of impossible standing in his way and declare he wasn’t giving up. Isn’t that a great story? I learned that little fact this morning while listening to an Oprah podcast and I’ve been singing it since. It made me think about all that towers over us today, blocking us from what we really want. All the obstacles. All the hardships. All the setbacks and frustrations, delays and difficulties. Have we bowed down to that which stands in our way? You were never created to bow to the mountain. You are made only to bow to the maker of Heaven and Earth, and yes, the maker of the mountains which stand in your way. You bow only to Him … and you vow to not stop moving forward with Him, no matter how hard it gets. What have you allowed to detour you from the life you were created for? What hardship has extinguished the fire of passion you once had? What stood in your way and caused you to turn the other way, when God was calling you forward the whole time? Come back to what you’re here for. You’re not here for flat plains of nothingness. You’re not here for miles and miles, years and years of the same flat landscape. You’re here for mountains. You’re here for valleys. You’re here for wide rivers that you somehow have to cross. You’re designed for this. This is where you get better. Move forward! Psalm 104 is this beautiful poetic writing about the majesty of God and his creation. I love the entire chapter. Here are a few of my favorite parts: “The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants. He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. Bat at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight: they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. You set a boundary they cannot cross: never again will they cover the earth. May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works – he who looks at the earth, and it trembles, who touches the mountains, and they smoke.”