Turning Mountains into Roads

Some days it sounds rather appealing to get away from it all and go live in a small, isolated village away from the rest of the world. But what happens when a craving for Taco Bell hits me? What if I need something from Lowes? I’ve picked a village so isolated even Amazon or DoorDash can’t get through, and now it doesn’t sound so appealing after all.

That’s how the villagers in Vercors felt. The five thousand residents of this French village felt isolated from the rest of the world—and they were. Why they chose this remote region high up in the French Alps to settle down is anybody’s guess, but instead of moving, they took another road. Literally. They could walk and sing “Climb Every Mountain” with Julie Andrews, but use a horse-drawn carriage? Forget it. So they set out to build a road.

The road they built, the Les Grands Goulets, was only a shade over a mile long, but it took seven years to build. This was 1844, and Caterpillar equipment wouldn’t show up for another sixty years. The workers created what is called a balcony road by hanging down the side of the mountain on a rope ladder and throwing dynamite into the rock. swinging out of the way just in time to avoid being blown up.

The road was perilous to build, and once it was completed in 1851, it was perilous to travel. It is called a balcony road because it is lane cut into the sides of sheer cliffs. Sharp turns. “The space between two mountains is unnerving at points and the road is often so narrow that squeezing past an oncoming car was a dangerous and time-consuming ordeal. Often very steep and high up in the gorge, the road had no guardrails.”[1] I like to think of myself as an adventurous person, but they lost me at dangerous, steep, and no guardrails.

And it is deadly. The mountain keeps falling in on itself. With plenty of rockslides and fatal accidents, the French government permanently shut the road down in 2005. Not even hikers are allowed on it. However, for the wonderful people of Vercors, a better road was built in 2008, so they can still get the French version of Taco Bell.

We all have those moments when a mountain is in our way. We all face rough patches in our life. Sometimes it’s nothing more than a pothole, like an annoying co-worker who goes on and on and on about Taylor Swift. But other times, those rough patches make our journey come to a halt. A job loss. A divorce. A doctor’s report. A teenager determined to rebel against all you value.

And sometimes those roadblocks are the result of our own stupidity and sin.

In those moments, we grab the closest shovel or tool and start removing the mountain, piece by piece. We try to do better. We make an effort to be better people, but just as we remove some of the rubble, more appears. We want to get on with our lives and move forward, but the mountain of life keeps falling in on us.

Can I offer another solution?

Turn your life with all its problems over to Jesus. When it comes to sin, He’s the only perfect One who can remove it. When it comes to those things that leads to stress, anxiety, and the feeling that you just can’t win, He steps in and walks with You. At times, He may even carry you. But there is no mountain where Jesus is concerned.

In looking toward Jesus, the coming Messiah, Isaiah wrote,

“Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be leveled; the uneven ground will become smooth and the rough places, a plain” (Isa. 40:4).

When the mountain looms before you, trust Him. And keep walking.