KATHY GABLER—Revealing Mountains — May we be like David as he prayed for the mountains within himself to be revealed in Psalms 139:23,24. Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (NKJ) A paraphrased word study reveals this in his prayer: “O God, examine me and reveal my mind, my knowledge, my thinking, my memories, my inclinations, my determinations, my conscience, my moral character, my appetites, my emotions and my passions.  Scrutinize me and reveal my disturbing thoughts and opinions.”  When David asked God to search him for wicked ways he was NOT on a guilt-driven search for evil and moral decay in himself.  The word translated “wicked” here is used only two other times in the Old Testament and both times it was translated “sorrow.”  So David was asking God to see if there were any high places of idolatry in him that had been built on wounds or offense or sorrow or hardship or bitter memories.  He was asking God to see if there  was any experience or threat bigger or more important to him than God.  David knew those things could distort God’s counsel and instructions and even block him from God’s presence.  Every soulish mountain-stronghold becomes a blind spot that blocks us from seeing God’s truth and purpose, thereby keeping us from God’s presence and plans in some part of our life.