Two Elves and a Mountain

Once upon a time, there was a great King in a great land who wanted to move a mountain, which was blocking His view of the sunrise. So He chose two young, strong elves to complete the task of moving said mountain.
    But when their first day of work dawned, the elves found themselves standing in a field staring up at the mountain which they were supposed to move. While one elf was very hopeful they could complete the task, the other was intimidated and doubted himself and his abilities to overcome this mountainous problem.
    “How does He expect us to move a mountain?” The doubtful one huffed. “Just look at that thing!”
    “We can do it.” Said the hopeful one confidently.  
    “I don’t see how.” The doubtful one grumbled. “It’s far too big and I’m far too small. Our King is out of his mind.”
    Looking over at his friend, the hopeful one pointed to the distant mountain and asked, “Can you pick that up?”
    “Not a chance,” the doubtful one shook his head.
    Bending down, the hopeful one plucked up a pebble from the leaves at their feet.
    “But can you pick this up?” He handed the pebble to the doubtful elf.
    “Well, yes, but this is a pebble. That is a mountain. And I’m just an elf.”
    “How do you move a mountain?”
    The doubtful one threw up his hands. “That’s what I’ve been asking!”
    The hopeful one smiled. “Mountains are made up of pebbles.”
    The doubtful one paused and looked at first his comrade, then the mountain, then the pebble in his palm.
   “Even though we can’t pick up the whole mountain,” continued the hopeful elf, “we can pick up the pebbles…”
    “So what?” Scoffed the confused, doubtful one.
    “So, we’ll move the mountain, one pebble at a time.”
    Looking up at the giant mountain towering above them, the doubtful elf laughed. “That could take a lifetime! How long does our King expect this to take?”
    The hopeful one shrugged nonchalantly and just grinned, “Take that up with Him.”
Copyright 2011

In life, when we’re faced with mountainous problems that block our sunrise, we can either stare at the mountain and be shrunk in its shadow or move it bit by bit. The same goes for our dreams. If you have a dream, like mine, which is as ambitious as moving a mountain, you start small and begin by picking up pebbles, doing what you can at the moment to get you from where you are to where you want to be. Eventually, your mountain will have moved and again you’ll see the sunrise.

J

    He replied, “Because you have so little faith, I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Matthew 17:20