Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Look What I Did



At 29,029 feet above sea level, Mt Everest towers over every other thing in existence on this planet. According to Wikipedia, 2700 people have been successful at reaching the summit, while 210 have never returned. There are some areas on Everest where the conditions are so terrible that the bodies of those who have sacrificed themselves to the thrill of climbing the world's tallest mountain have been left where they are, for all to see: the risk is too great to try and remove them.

What compels people to climb Everest? I suppose it is the same reason people go skydiving, or do somersaults in the air with a motorcycle. It is the thrill, the adventure, the sense of accomplishment. To be able to say to the world, "Look What I Did!" Everybody is very impressed by those who risk their lives to do such fantastic feats of strength, endurance, and concentration.

I wonder, however, what God thinks of all these things.

The diameter of the Earth is 6357km from pole to pole, and Everest is 8.9 km high. This means that our planet is a sphere, the largest deviation being only 0.14% of it's diameter.

A billiard ball is allowed deviations of 0.2%.

The Earth, therefore, is smoother than a billiard ball. Everest doesn't look so big anymore, does it?

Can you imagine how God views us. I don't think He cares about the ability of humans to scale a measly twenty-nine thousand feet into the air. I don't think He's very impressed.

What does impress Him?

"Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow"

"Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God."

"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

"Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord they God with all thy hear, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou slat love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

We can know what pleases God because he has told us.

Funny, but I can't find "Everest" anywhere in scripture.

2 comments:

  1. Maybe so, but just about every important event in the bible occurs on a mountain.

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  2. True. Except for the ark landing, oops. Um, I mean except for God sending fire on the altar of Elijah so the -- no. Um, When God spoke to Moses-, I know! When Jesus gave the sermon where he told us how to--ummmmmmm, you're right.

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