In November of 1979, President Spencer W. Kimball told this moving story about the great Israeli warrior, Caleb: “Shortly after Moses led Israel out of bondage from Egypt, he sent twelve men to search out the promised land and to bring back word about living conditions there. Caleb and Joshua were among the group. After spending forty days on their mission, the twelve men returned. They brought back figs and pomegranates and a cluster of grapes so large it took two men to carry it between them on a pole. The majority of the search party gave a very discouraging report on the promised land and its inhabitants. Although they found a land that was beautiful and desirable and flowing with milk and honey, they also found that the cities were walled and formidable and that the people, the “sons of Anak,” looked like giants. The Israelite scouts said that they felt like grasshoppers in comparison. Caleb, however, saw things a little differently, with what the Lord called “another spirit,” and his account of the journey and their challenges was quite different. He said, “Let us go up at once, and possess [their land]; for we are well able to overcome it.” (Numbers 13:30) Joshua and Caleb were the only two who were sent to scout out the promised land by Moses who had faith that the Israelites could successfully enter in and conquer it. But the faint-hearted Israelites, remembering the security of their Egyptian slavery and lacking faith in God, rejected Caleb and Joshua and sought even to stone them to death.”
Because of their lack of faith, the children of Israel were required to spend the next forty years wandering about and eating the dust of the desert, when they might have feasted on milk and honey. After forty years only Caleb and Joshua were alive and allowed to enter the promised land. Caleb concluded his moving declaration with a request and a challenge with which my heart finds full sympathy. The Anakims, the giants, were still inhabiting the promised land, and they had to be overcome. Said Caleb, now at 85 years, “Give me this mountain” ( Joshua 14:12). It doesn’t take a mountain climber to understand Caleb’s challenge. President Kimball concluded by saying, we, too, have great challenges ahead of us, giant opportunities to be met. Can we all say, as did Caleb at 85 years of age, “Give me this Mountain.”
Mountains not only represent great challenges, challenges to men’s skills and endurance, but they are also and always have been a source of inspiration. Men have gone to the mountain to seek guidance and the spirit. President Kimball himself, when first called to be an Apostle, went to the mountain to pray and seek guidance from the Lord. In many cases the Lord himself has carried His prophets to high mountains to instruct and inspire them. Nephi of old said, “For it came to pass after I had desired to know the things that my father had seen, and believing that the Lord was able to make them known unto me, as I sat pondering in mine heart I was caught away in the Spirit of the Lord, yea, into an exceedingly high mountain which I never had before seen, and upon which I never had before set my foot.” (1 Nephi 1:1)
Moses also was caught up similarly, “The words of God, which he spake unto Moses at a time when Moses was caught up into an exceedingly high mountain, And he saw God face to face, and he talked with him, and the glory of God was upon Moses; therefore Moses could endure his presence.” (Moses1:1–2) Mount Sinai, and the Mount of Transfiguration, were also places where great spiritual experiences have taken place.
Even cartoonists have identified a mountain peak as the place that must be climbed to be enlightened by wise gurus. A high mountain, I suppose, is suggestive of a place where a person can see other than the world view and see rather an endless blue sky above them, a place where a person might feel closer to God and the wonders of His creations. In church the other day, I heard the expression, a ‘high mountain experience,’ suggesting that when one feels the spirit more strongly than normally, they may have had a ‘high mountain’ experience. Though they were not taken to a high mountain, they felt lifted up spiritually. As I thought about ‘high mountain experiences,’ it seemed to me that as a part of our development that it is important for us all to seek after those kinds of experiences. We should put ourselves in places, and before people, where those experiences are most likely to happen. It is like the advice given by the Lord to ‘Stand in Holy Places.’ The more often we find ourselves in places where we are moved by the spirit, the less likely we will want to stand in those places where His spirit cannot dwell. We can find a good example of that if we go back to the Book of Moses. Moses, after having just been in the presence of God, was confronted by Satan, who came tempting him, saying: “Moses, son of man, worship me… Moses looked upon Satan and said: Who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God, in the similitude of his Only Begotten; and where is thy glory, that I should worship thee?” (Moses 1:12–13) When we are often in the presence of the spirit, it is easier for us to recognize when we are in places where there is no glory. I believe that if we want to have ‘high mountain’ experiences then we should begin exercising ‘high mountain’ faith. As the Lord said of Caleb we may have to adopt a “different spirit” to have that kind of experience Possibly the greatest challenge that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has before it in our day is to obey the the Lord’s commandment in respect to searching out and then doing the work for our ancestors. The challenge given us in our day is different than that given to the Israelites, nevertheless, there are still giants in the way that we are going to have to deal with. We can be as faithful Caleb was and say, “Give me this mountain,” or we can be as those Israelites who said they felt as grasshoppers.