Friday Foto Friends...Making a Mountain out of a Molehill!

Happy Friday everyone!  I have a different kind of story to share in pictures today...if you are extremely squeamish about nature, then you may want to skip over this...but I promise you it has a happy ending.

Yesterday afternoon I noticed Blackie down near the shoreline of Still Waters Pond, looking intently at something on the ground.  So focused was he on his prey that he never even noticed me quietly sneaking up for a closer look, and this is what I saw:

Yes, that is a mole!  Click HERE for a good description from the National Wildlife Federation.

 I guess I just discovered that Blackie is a fierce warrior and a good hunter! At least, that's how it appears right now...but keep reading...

Blackie had a pretty good grip on this wiggly furry creature in his jaws, but I could see that it was a challenge to hold on to the mole who was not giving up without a good fight...

Blackie kept moving to higher ground and looking for a good place to sit down and hopefully enjoy what he had captured...

Sunshine came over to see what all the commotion was about...

But apparently he wasn't interested enough to try and make Blackie share his bounty...so he just walked away...

Blackie continued his trek across the lawn, looking for a good spot to sit...

But alas! Somehow he lost his grip on the mole and the mole escaped and moved away so rapidly that Blackie hardly knew what had happened...

He tried to stalk him again, but, where did he go???

Amazingly, Mr. Mole managed not only to escape the jaws of certain death, but he managed to dig his way back down in the ground so rapidly that there was nothing Blackie could do but sit and watch the earth moving and his treasure disappearing farther and farther down into the ground!!

So Blackie decided to just lay down and watch and wait and guard the gate to the tunnel in case the little mole tried to come back up for "air".  I don't think Mr. Mole was that dumb, and his tunneling probably already had him quite far away and in a place where Blackie could not reach him again...

Sunshine was laying nearby and looked up as if to say, "I could've told him so! I've been there and done that, and already knew who would win that fight."

Click HERE for more information about moles.

In thinking about the term, "making a mountain out of a molehill"... I couldn't help but think about all the times that we humans tend to get all worked up over things that probably really aren't all that important in the grand scheme of life.  We think that "our way is the only way, or the best way"...and we just can't let go of our own self importance in order to allow others who may disagree with us any grace. We try to build up our "mountain" from a little molehill by enlisting the opinions of others who agree with us and making our case bigger and bigger so that anyone who dares to contend with us will be put to shame by our greatness.  

Proverbs 10:12 NKJV

12 Hatred stirs up strife,

But love covers all sins.

Sadly, all too often in creating this big mountain we only stir up strife and people begin to take sides and in defending their own point, people who once may have valued and cared for one another deteriorate into people who barely tolerate each other, if at all.  Families and friendships are hurt and destroyed, and nothing of any great value can ever come out of such disagreement.  

Yes, I do understand that there some points in life that we should never waver upon, but I like the old saying, "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater".    In other words, don't get so caught up in your personal stance that you neglect to preserve and protect relationships that are much more valuable and vulnerable.  Is being "right" really more important than family and dear friends?  

I do know that there are some relationships that are toxic and probably need to be severed, but that's not really what I'm talking about here.  And I don't want to "make a mountain out of a molehill" by trying to explore this subject too much here...but seeing that mole and his determination to survive got me thinking about these things today. 

Here's what Isaiah the Prophet had to say about mountains...

3 

Isaiah 40:3-5 NKJV

The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

“Prepare the way of the Lord;

Make straight in the desert

A highway for our God.

4 Every valley shall be exalted

And every mountain and hill brought low;

The crooked places shall be made straight

And the rough places smooth;

5 The glory of the Lord shall be revealed,

And all flesh shall see it together;

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

On that day, all of our grandiose ideas and thoughts and self-importance will be 'brought low"...and "the Glory of the LORD  will be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."... On that day, there's only one thing that really matters...where do I stand with God?  Have I repented of my own self-righteousness and accepted God's free offer of salvation found only in His Son, Jesus Christ?

John 14:6  NKJV

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. 

No one comes to the Father except through Me."

Ephesians 2:8-9  NKJV

8 "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; 

it is the gift of God, 

9 not of works, lest anyone should boast."

This is the only mountain I will stand on and not waver...my salvation comes only through my faith in Jesus Christ...and it is His free gift to me and anyone who will believe...and none of my self-important ideas or works have anything to do with it.  Without Christ, I am nothing...I am lower than a mole in the dirt.  My big mountains and grand ideas will NOT get me into heaven...Only Jesus...and that is the only truth that will set us all free from our bondage to grand ideas and big mountains and worthless schemes.  

I hope you are all standing with me on this mountain!