Outside Reading - Peter Ikeda

One of the books I'm currently reading is called "The Final Quest" by Rick Joyner. It is a book about a prophetic vision Joyner received from God about the ongoing battle between the physical realm and the spiritual realm. The entire war between the forces of God and the forces of evil wage war on a battlefield and the Mountain of God is where believers find refuge from the onslaught of the enemy. This mountain made me think about all the mountains we've discussed in class and how mountains serve as an axis mundi in many religions because they are so close to the heavens. I think that in this book, the Holy Mountain serves as the axis mundi of Christianity as it is the point in which Christians can go to commune with God himself, the place where Heaven and earth collide. The mountain is leveled with different biblical truths, each level more higher and narrower than before. These levels represent the levels of closeness and dedication to God. It symbolizes the climb Christians make through their lives as they constantly grow in Christ. The higher they climb, the closer to God they grow which also indicates the farther from the enemy and as Joyner writes "the higher we climbed, the larger both our shields and our swords grew, and fewer of the enemy arrows could reach our position." This symbolic representation of the mountain as the climb of Christian faith really got me thinking and inspired me to utilize this imagery in my paper on mountains!