Snow on the Mountains
One Year Bible: Dec. 30
Malachi 1:1-2:17
“Snow on the Mountains” (Part One)
When driving in the Orange County, California area, one can often observe the snow covering the mountains in the wintertime. This is truly a magnificent sight.
For years, during many phone conversations with my mom, she told me, “I wish you could see the snow on the mountains!” She drove past them daily on her little outing to walk at the mall. We had this same little conversation so many times that I could imitate her voice and found humor in it.
I needed to return home after Thanksgiving break, so I drove for the last time to see her and say goodbye. She was in hospice care in an assisted living facility, and I had spent the week with her. She had been in a coma and could not eat or drink for days. She hung on longer than imaginable. I didn’t want to leave but had run out of sick days to use for work. It was not just raining; it was pouring, flooding, and storming as I made my last drive there. That felt about right to me…
On this day, it hit me as I drove past the mountains. The snow covering was the largest it had been in decades. The snow was massive and had come down so low that people were experiencing snow they had never experienced it before. The sight was beyond beautiful! I would enjoy its beauty the entire drive home and marvel at the works of God.
On this very same day, I awoke with a long-forgotten memory of my aunt, Louise, who was my mom’s sister. I had taken a trip with my mom, so she could say goodbye to her sister when I was just a freshman in college. It was very sad because my aunt died of cancer in the hospital. It was also an amazing time as my aunt was a very strong, vibrant Christian. As we gathered around my aunt’s bed, I witnessed a great miracle, not that she was healed, but that her final words were to heal others. Her last words were praying out loud for all of her family members by name. Her prayer of blessing was her very last word!
As a young person, I was amazed at her unselfishness, kindness, faith, and sense of hope she had. Even as she suffered and went to face her God, she prayed for others. Her faith was simply amazing. The thought hit me of how my mom would see her sister again as she awaited her heavenly home.
God’s timing, as always, was perfect and purposeful. I felt sadness for myself as I had to leave and wanted to stay, but God was calling me to pray for my entire family.
He always calls us to “lift our eyes to the mountains from which our hope comes” and to stop and look up.
As I had my last opportunity to speak with my mom, I just had to start with, “Mom, I wish you could see the snow on the mountains!”
Then it hit me. She WILL see the SNOW ON THE MOUNTAINS. It will be the most magnificent sight ever. It will exceed all earthly snow, beauty, and this world's former things.
Do you remember the eighth vision of Zechariah, which involved four chariots coming from between “TWO MOUNTAINS” made of bronze? (6:1-8)
The MOUNTAINS symbolize the idea of STRENGTH and POWER. While SNOW symbolizes PURITY. (Isa. 2:2, Dan. 2:35)
Snow in the Bible is a reminder that God makes everything fresh, pure, and perfect. “Though our sins are as scarlet, he will make us as white as snow.”
What is broken will be made whole. What is wrong will be made right. What is sad will be comforted. What is incomplete will be made complete.
The book of Malachi is “the last words and moments” of the Old Covenant with God’s beloved people. He is speaking to them about what is deeply in His heart. Final words are important!
Malachi is writing them a love letter from their father, “I have always loved you,” says the Lord.
The question is, “Will they lift their eyes to see HIS POWER, PURITY, and experience His PEACE?”
This year is ending, and a new one is ready to begin. And when things end, we need to refocus our eyes on who is leading us and where we are headed. Things may seem out of control, but we have a sovereign God who is “IN CONTROL.”
The question is, "Are we looking up?"
“Woman,” Jesus replied, “Believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem…Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks”. (John 4: 22-23)
That, my friends, is the beauty of the snow on the mountains...
