His Highest for the Heights

09.14.11

Ezekiel 36.8 8“‘But you, mountains of Israel, will produce branches and fruit for my people Israel, for they will soon come home. 9 I am concerned for you and will look on you with favor; you will be plowed and sown, 10 and I will cause many people to live on you—yes, all of Israel. The towns will be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt. 11 I will increase the number of people and animals living on you, and they will be fruitful and become numerous. I will settle people on you as in the past and will make you prosper more than before. Then you will know that I am the LORD. 12 I will cause people, my people Israel, to live on you. They will possess you, and you will be their inheritance; you will never again deprive them of their children. NIV

How vast and deep and wide is the love of God that surpasses knowledge! I know I’ve chosen a rather lengthy portion of Scripture today but I really felt like one verse just wouldn’t quite get the job done in expressing the beauty in what I see here in Ezekiel 36. (Not because I see it, but because it’s there…)

One of my favorite verses in all of Scripture is, How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” (Isaiah 52.7 NIV). Mountains play a very important role in Jewish writing. I think it’s because they represent Princely portion, power, protection, and provision. And so my heart was drawn to these words that speak good of the mountains that were in the homeland of God’s people. Those mountains had grace!

Having never seen those mountains, I can only conjure up thoughts of what they looked like way back then and compare my thoughts to the mountains here in my own homeland of northeastern Oregon. I wonder what God thinks about my mountains. I wonder what the people here would think if God said to our mountains: “But you, mountains of Oregon, will produce branches and fruit for my people... I am concerned for you and will look on you with favor; you will be plowed and sown, and I will cause many people to live on you—yes, all of my people. The towns will be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt. I will increase the number of people and animals living on you, and they will be fruitful and become numerous. I will settle people on you as in the past and will make you prosper more than before. Then you will know that I am the LORD. I will cause people, my people, to live on you. They will possess you, and you will be their inheritance; you will never again deprive them of their children.”?

Do you wonder about what God thinks of your homeland? Do you think God thinks favorably about it or otherwise? Does it matter? The homeland of the Jews was God’s gift to them. Our homeland is where God in His wisdom and election placed us to carry out His will: From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. (Acts 17.26-27 NIV)

Today, I am glad about what God thinks about my homeland and about what God thinks of me: He calls me His child. And He has chosen for me to live in the mountains and they are pretty!