The Back Side of the Mountain by Heather Shore
Sometimes, freedom and wholeness come from a season of forced quietness. I recently met with a dear friend, and we caught up on our lives. She wanted to get together and hear how life was going. This trustworthy person kept saying this phrase, which I had never heard before: “You’re on the back side of the mountain.” She explained that I have been strategically placed in solitude to prepare me for the work of God. The back side can also be a place of transition and pruning. Those are words I have fought against while trying to find freedom, but I have come to realize these quiet times are needed to become whole.
What Does the Back Side of the Mountain Look Like?
It is a quiet place. It’s a place where we are grown, groomed, and loved. We sometimes must sit there for years and other times for a short while. How long you sit there depends on how much of the world needs to be removed from you. I love this definition of the back side from Michael Jake’s sermon: “Sometimes the Lord needs to remove us from what we know and expect to prepare us for a greater work. It’s a strategic and obscure place where the Lord places us to prune us.” Those words finally excite me! The adjectives and verbs he uses to describe the back side give you an idea of what is intended by God. The back side involves refreshment, preparation, pruning, solitude, development, lowliness, growth, instruction, and transition. All those words lead to so much growth.
The word confidence has been huge for me in 2021. Part of being in a season like this means having the confidence to understand where we are and be able to sit amid the back side well. Here is the deal: God will sometimes strip us of the things in our lives that tend to replace him, including our own self-sufficiency. This stripping happens on the back side, and as a result, the hope is that we find our confidence in him. God is love, and he does not violate his character. His judgment is always an expression of his love to bring us into conformity with him and his will for us. Navigating this season includes the stripping of self-sufficiency and allowing his confidence to fill us.
How Long Does It Last?
We do not have a clue how long the back side will last. Until everyone and everything is stripped away? Possibly. But in God’s goodness and kindness, he will slowly place people and opportunities back into our life. In my life, he’s been reminding me that I am not alone on the back side. We always have God. Whatever your season looks like, whether it is a growing and refreshing time or a time of being stripped and humbled, rest in knowing something great is coming around the corner. The back side doesn’t last forever, but the sweetness that comes will enable you to live out your purpose.
[i] Michael Jake, “The Backside of the Desert, A Sermon on Moses”, June 15th, 2014, https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-backside-of-the-desert-michael-jakes-sermon-on-moses-185979.
[ii] Joyce Simmons, June30th, 2000, Charimsa Leader Magazine, https://ministrytodaymag.com/leadership/ethics/423-on-the-back-side-of-the-desert.
5 Nancy Missler, “Reflections of His Image: Where Does Self Life Come From?” Koinonia House, khouse.org, October 1, 2007, https://www.khouse.org/articles/2007/739/.
The Back Side of the Mountain (previously published on heathervshore.com) and an excerpt from God Box: Unleashing Freedom and Wholeness through the Holy Spirit.
Heather is a mom, writer, and speaker. She enjoys the outdoors with her family, exercise, traveling and seeing what adventure God will bring them through next. After surviving domestic violence trauma in her early twenties, she realized her true calling was to help women overcome abuse and other life hardships. Her ministry is to encourage women and help them to embrace freedom and abundant life in Christ.