Eldredge - Moving Mountains: How You, God, and Prayer Can Change Things for Good

2016 by John Eldredge

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Nelson Books, an imprint of Thomas Nelson. Nelson Books and Thomas Nelson are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

Published in association with Yates & Yates, www.yates2.com.

Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Any Internet addresses, phone numbers, or company or product information printed in this book are offered as a resource and are not intended in any way to be or to imply an endorsement by Thomas Nelson, nor does Thomas Nelson vouch for the existence, content, or services of these sites, phone numbers, companies, or products beyond the life of this book.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.tm Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Scripture quotations marked UPDATED NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation. 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson. 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE. The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the KING JAMES VERSION. Public domain.

ISBN: 978-0-7180-7953-6 (IE)
ISBN: 978-0-7180-3766-6 (e-book)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Eldredge, John, 1960

Title: Moving mountains : praying with passion, confidence, and authority / John Eldredge.

Description: Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015027220 | ISBN 9780718037512

Subjects: LCSH: Prayer--Christianity.

Classification: LCC BV210.3 .E43 2016 | DDC 248.3/2--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015027220

16 17 18 19 20 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the men and women who taught me to prayI am forever changed.

CONTENTS

J une 26, 2012, was a simmering summer day in Colorado. Thermometers in Colorado Springs would report a record-breaking high of 101Ffueling concerns about a wildfire burning unchecked in the mountains west of town. Fire crews were spread thin, and drought conditions had prepped the hillsides like tinder. Many worried eyes were turned toward the hills that day. Then, as if on some malevolent cue, winds started gusting to sixty-five miles an hour. (A thirty-five-mile-per-hour blast will almost knock you over, to give you some perspective; sixty-five miles per hour is considered a violent storm on the Beaufort Wind Scale.) Storm winds and flames on dry mountain terrain make for an unholy trinity.

The Waldo Canyon Fire jumped containment lines. Like the German blitzkrieg racing across Poland in 1939, it began sweeping east toward the city limits, unchecked and ravening. When all was said and done, 18,247 acres and 346 homes were consumed.

I was sitting at my desk that afternoon when a colleague walked in and said, Have you seen this? My instinctive reaction was to look to the mountainsour office windows face westand I saw the vanguard of the fire cresting the last ridge before town. Wed been following the reports hour to hour; the fire had grown to 4,000 acres and was deemed only 5 percent contained. My neighborhood (we border the forest) had been placed on evacuation warning twice, and for days we watched the column of smoke rising over the mountains from the fires epicenter west of us, billowing to a height of thirty thousand feet like a thunderhead or the plume of a volcano, all orange and black and foreboding.

But the reports kept assuring us that the fire would move north and west and bypass town, so we went on with our livesuntil I saw the advancing flames crest the ridge. I grabbed my phone as I walked out the door and called Stasi. Pack up; Im headed home. They havent given the evacuation notice, she said. Its coming, I told her. The fire is coming. I can see it. Im on my way. Like a man running before an incoming tide, I literally raced the fire home as it swept ridge after ridge. We grabbed the dog and a few belongingsits true, what they say, how little actually matters to you when it comes down to the momentand said good-bye to everything else.

Our neighbors were the last to leave; they later told us that trees on the hill above our houses were exploding. Stuck in the traffic jams caused by the evacuation, ashes drifting down like snowflakes, we frantically called and texted friends asking for prayer. My 78 Land Cruiser has no air conditioning, so I soaked a scarf of Stasis in water and held it to my mouth to prevent smoke inhalation while I made contingency plans should the fire catch up to us; the winds were howling down the mountain now, driving the flames forward like the hounds of hell.

We took cover east of town with some dear friends and watched anxiously. It would be three more days of fire and smoke and shrouded hillsides till we heard the newsour home had been spared.

Bits and pieces of story began to trickle in, but it was the reports of the fire crews that left us speechless. A veteran fire chief and a handful of wildfire hot shots had gathered on our street to stand in wonder as they witnessed something they had never seen before. The one-hundred-foot wall of flame should have swept down our summer-crisp hillside and engulfed our home in a matter of seconds. But it did not. Every time the advancing fury approached our property line, it wavered, hesitated, and pulled back. The raging furnace would not cross our property line. It would advance, then retreat, advance, then retreatthough the winds were at its back and the fire had just covered miles in a manner of minutes. We realized it was at that same moment, three days earlier, that a friend had texted us,

I saw an angel, above your house, spreading its wings and flapping them against the wind and the fire. I think you are going to be okay.

When we finally were allowed back into the neighborhood, we found that the low-lying grass fire had burned right up to our porch. But the major assault had not crossed our property line. The aspen trees in our yard were still in their summer glory.

I know, I knowthe story raises some difficulties; it touches the raw nerve of your own longing for rescue and your history of unanswered prayers. Other people were earnestly praying as the fire swept downhow come their homes werent spared? I dont pretend to know the answer to that. Like you, I have my own story of prayers answered, prayers unanswered, and silence I cant quite make sense of. This is not a story about my prayers at all. What I do know is this: every day, when I step out my door, I see up on the hill the outline of blackened tree stumps, and then, coming closer, after you cross our property line, green, living trees. One side looks like Mordor, the other, Eden. An irrefutable witness to the power of prayer.