The car stopped as it came to the end of the rough track near the summit of the hill. From a nearby rocky outcrop, we watched an old man leave the vehicle and slowly climb the last few metres to the sacred spot. Taking a stone, he threw it onto the mound that topped the hill and circled the pile: once for the past, once for the present and once for the future. His Buddhist animistic beliefs, rooted in Shamanism, revere the creation, respect the spirits of the mountains, sky, soil and rivers causing him to pray for peace, good fortune and blessing for him and his family, and that life’s problems might be small.

Many of our Christian friends share that old man’s desire, particularly after they’ve experienced the initial joy and peace of the gospel. Finding all their questions answered and problems solved, they often unwittingly imagine that this is the Christian life.

But, not long into this new Christian journey of faith, our friends hit some obstruction that smashes them against reality’s harsh surface, leaving them questioning what is wrong with God, and why He’s allowed this to happen. Unfulfilled promises leave unspoken expectations scattered and broken. Who is this God to let us fall? Joy eludes them, along with their mountain-top experience of peace. And new faith, so recently celebrated, comes tumbling to the ground. Like un-weaned infants, they, and we too, squirm and squeal. Why have our desires not been satisfied?

Mongolians, many of whom have a background of animistic beliefs, look to nature for protection and promises of the eternal. While the mountains we seek to scale can be much more subversive: the perplexity of ambition, of worldly pride and security for example. But none of these can save a man. Despite the solid appearance of the mountains and their seeming immoveable strength, our help does not come from the spirits of the natural world; it comes from the Creator of that natural world.

Although He has not promised to exempt us from difficulties or to keep us from all dangers, He has promised that He will keep us during our trials. And that those trials will never separate us from Him and His purposes for us.

Of course, when our faith falters under the weight of pain and suffering we want Him to do something and to do that something now. Even though we might have fits of pique and the sulks, there are times when the desired help does not come, because God does not exist solely to satisfy our own desires. No, He is seeking to teach us to love Him for who He is, not what we can get from Him. Letting that truth transform our thinking is significant, but it does not bring instant change, rather it requires a daily commitment to surrender our selfish desires to Him, alongside a willingness that entrusts ourselves into His care, no longer clinging to our precarious selves that succumb to every attack, we stand calm and confidence in God.

The mountains stand sentry like, a testimony to our Creator God and a reminder of Him on whom our faith and peace rests.