God of the mountains?

Then a man of God came and spoke to the king of Israel, and said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Because the Syrians have said, “The Lord is God of the hills, but He is not God of the valleys,” therefore I will deliver all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’ ” And they encamped opposite each other for seven days. So it was that on the seventh day the battle was joined; and the children of Israel killed one hundred thousand foot soldiers of the Syrians in one day. But the rest fled to Aphek, into the city; then a wall fell on twenty-seven thousand of the men who were left. And Ben-Hadad fled and went into the city, into an inner chamber. – 1 Kings 20.28-30

The Syrians didn’t really understand the concept of the Lord God. The knew a lot about the false gods and pagan idols, but didn’t really know what an omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent God was.

They thought that Israel’s God, Jehovah, was like their gods. If He was God of the hills He could not be God of the valleys. The Syrians thought they could bypass God is they stayed away from the hills.

But it didn’t work. They were defeated in battle and and God showed that He was Lord of all.

It's not really a surprising story. These folks didn’t have any knowledge or could not accept a God who was God of all. They only knew gods who were limited by time and space and power and knowledge when the Lord is bound by none of those things.

But it is a shame when we see our God the same way. We can see God at work when we are on the mountaintops, but we it is harder for us to see Him when we are in the valleys. Sadly we can limit our omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient God by only seeing Him when things are going well and can fail to see Him when they are not. We too can say ‘where is God’ when things are not going so well.

That's a shame. We forget that our Lord is with us wherever we go and whatever happens and however things seem at the moment.

Are we as guilty as the Syrians of seeing God only as the God of the mountains?