The High Places

The following is a piece I wrote several years ago...long before 9/11 and the collapse of the World Trade Center.

The high places have always held a fascination for us. In our recreation, we pursue the high places, climbing mountains, hiking high forest trails, ballooning, hang gliding. Even young children love to climb to the top of the jungle gym or swing as high as they can.
We try to establish our dwellings in high places also. We choose home sites on the sides of mountains. We build mansions on top of the highest hills. If there are no high hills, we build high towers instead. I read recently about the new skyscraper that is planned to be built in Chicago. At 199 stories, it will be a third taller than any building that now exists. I laughingly told my husband that I would hate to be around when that building fell down, but maybe it isn't so funny.
At the root of our quest for the high places is something inherently good, something formed in us from the beginning of time, a desire to be close to our creator. But along with our desire to be close to God, there is something else which gets sidetracked and begins worshipping the high places instead. The children of Israel built themselves high places. Listen to what it says in II King 17.
"And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord their God, and they built themselves high places in all their cities from the tower of the watchman to the fenced city: And they set them up images and groves in every high hill and under every green tree and there they burnt incense in all the high places as did the heathen..."
We have always worshiped and erected temples to the god of the high place. Once the highest building in any city was the cathedral. In many small towns in our country it was the church with it's steeple.
When the focus shifted to the god of government, city halls, court houses and state capitols became the highest places in our cities.
And, now we worship the god of commerce. We build buildings that are great monuments to the business transacted within. The highest buildings in our land are all dedicated to the gods we worship.
God says he will tear down our high places and that means that someday even the best engineered building will probably fall. But before we start worrying needlessly about the skyscrapers falling down, we need to look at the high places we have erected in our own lives. Perhaps it is our beautiful home, or our career, or even our family. What do we lift up and exalt? What are the towers that we have built around us?
God wants to be our only fortress, our only high place. To truly be His people we must tear down all of our other high places: the people or positions we idolize, the things we run after, even those things we think will provide our security, and run after Him.
The children of Israel weren't all so different from us today. They didn't start following other gods because they were wicked. Instead, they had the same fears for their security that we have today, so they began to worship the harvest god so that they would have a guarantee of food and then the fertility god so that they would be blessed with children. Simple desires, simple gods, but they suddenly took their eyes off of their true provider. Soon the other gods became prominent and the God of Israel was relegated to the background.
God, the God of Israel, demands our total devotion. "Get thee up into the high mountains,” it says in Isaiah 40, "lift up thy voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid. Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!"
Those of us who work in those high places dedicated to other gods; in government, in business, even in churches, should be proclaiming to those around us that the Lord, he is God. We should not look to the high places for what they can provide for us, but should look to the one true God and his ever faithful provision.
The high places are not for us to worship, they are for us to climb, to climb and proclaim to the world. "Behold your God!"