With the holiday season coming close, I’m getting really excited to be seeing (and climbing!) mountains again. Proper mountains, in the Alps. Having grown up in the flattest of countries, the Netherlands, mountains have always amazed and intrigued me. Tall peaks so little touched by our building and landscaping. Rocks and valleys and waterfalls that have always seemed to be there.
People often say that we’re living in a rapidly changing world. Some of that change is great, but not all…
A changing political situation brings uncertainty. Technological change can bring exciting new gadgets or helpful improvements, but it also leads to new challenges and it can be strange to live in a world that’s so different from when you grew up several decades ago. Our health could suddenly change, or we lose a job, or some accident happens. You may wonder: what will the world – and my life – look like next year? In five years? In twenty?
Always the same – to some that may sound boring. But as I think of the unchanging mountains, I see stability, certainty, comfort. A solid place to stand. Something I can rely on when everything else changes. But of course, beautiful and awe-inspiring as they are, those mountains won’t do much to help me when I get unwell, or the bank balance doesn’t look great. They’re just mountains…
But then we can look higher than the mountains, to the God who is unchanging. The God who made this world – who made the mountains – is eternal. He was always there, and always will be. One of the songs in the Bible praises God like this: “In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.” (Psalm 102 verses 25-27).
And the Good News is that this unchanging God calls us to find stability and certainty and comfort in him! He isn’t hard and insensitive (like a rock), but a God of love and mercy. He sent his Son Jesus Christ into this world on a rescue mission for us, people struggling in a changing, broken world. Jesus said: come to me, believe in me, find rest in me. This invitation still stands, for Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and for ever.
As you perhaps, like me, see the mountains this summer, will you join me in looking higher than the mountains?
This column first appeared in the Newark Advertiser in July 2025, and was written by Klaas-Jan Gunnink.