Get Thee Into the Mountain

Yesterday I hiked up Table Mountain in the Teton mountain range.  As I made the long trek up to the summit and back down I thought about the many stories in the scriptures of prophets making their own journeys to the tops of mountains.  Here are some of the accounts that we have.    

After Lehi’s group arrived in Bountiful, Nephi was commanded by the Lord, “Arise, and get thee into the mountain.”  He did this “cried unto the Lord” there until he received the revelation that the Lord had for him (1 Nephi 17:7).  Later he told us that as he was building his ship, he did “go into the mount oft” as he sought revelation (1 Nephi 18:3).  When the brother of Jared needed help and revelation from the Lord, he went to a mount which was named Shelem “because of its exceeding height.”  He didn’t just climb it but he carried his 16 stones—which surely were not light—to the top of the mountain where he then petitioned the Lord (Ether 3:1).  Moses was in “caught up into an exceedingly” when he talked with God “face to face” and had the incredible experience that we read about in the first chapter of Moses (Moses 1:1).  Later after he led the children of Israel out of Egypt, “And the Lord came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up” (Exodus 19:20).  There some of the great revelations of the Law of Moses were revealed.  When Elijah escaped for his life after the encounter with the priests of Baal, he went “forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God” where he was taught by the Lord (1 Kings 19:8).  Even Jesus went into the mountains to commune with His Father: “When he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone” (Matt. 14:23).  In His counsel in the Olivet discourse, the Savior counseled the early Saints this way for when the “abomination of Desolation” was to come: “Then let them who are in Judea flee into the mountains” (JSM 1:13). 

So why do we have so many examples of going to the mountain?  Why did all of these prophets need to go to the mountain to receive instruction and revelation from God?  Surely He could reveal it to them without making them go to the top of an exceedingly high mountain—so what is He trying to teach us by giving us these stories.  Perhaps the first reason is that the Lord is teaching us that we have to leave the “world” in order to commune with Him.  The mountains represent a place that is uninhabited by people and undefiled by the ways of the world.  To really commune with God we must be able to leave behind the pull and distraction of the world: “Remove out of the midst of Babylon” (Jeremiah 50:8).  A second message perhaps that we get from this idea of going to the mountains is that to obtain great blessings and knowledge from the Lord we must exert real effort.  Climbing a mountain, as I was reminded yesterday, takes great effort—and so does obtaining blessings that we seek from the Lord.  He does not want us to take “no thought save it was to ask,” but rather we are to “diligently seek him” (D&C 9:7, Hebrews 11:6).  Zacharias and Elisabeth, Job, Joseph Smith, Abraham and Sara, Nephi and many others in the scriptures could teach us the necessity of diligently seeking the Lord and not giving a half-hearted effort in spiritual things.  We must spiritually climb our own mountains by putting forth all the effort that we have to receive revelation.  Only then can we expect the Lord, in His own time, to reveal the knowledge or grant the great blessings that we faithfully seek.