"The Lord is my Rock..."
We walk on an a ground that is constantly shifting, covering a planet that is constantly spinning. Time cannot be stopped, it is always in motion, thus we age. Everything on this earth ages. It is not meant to be preserved, so neither are our bodies.
"The Lord is my Rock..."
I work so hard to still and settle my physical life. As if I'm meant to stay here forever. For the last five years, I've lived more as a vagabond than anyone I've ever personally met, though not without anything I've needed. I've grown so, so weary of it. And every time I see a new transition arising, I cry out and beg God to make it stop, to make it better. Give me a miracle. A better option than having to so difficultly transition. Because I don't want to deal with this situation. Not again. I want to physically rise out of it and into a comfortable, settled life.
"The Lord is my Rock..."
We're in the middle of one of those transitions again. For about the ninth time. No lie. And some days I'm more confident that it'll all work out, things are going to be even better... And then there are days like today where I come back to the fear that it won't, and I have to call my husband (who is, by the way, the very best companion in any life I could have ever been given, but especially for this life of ours) and ask him for reassurance. Because though everything has indeed every time worked out alright, we've been through some pretty uncomfortable, inescapable situations.
"The Lord is my Rock..."
He assigned me to take his father's bible and my breakfast outside onto the back porch patio where, we have one of the most gorgeous views of our relatives land. We're currently renting a house from them, and their land stretches out behind the house, roamed by horses and chickens. There is a delightful amount of yellow wildflowers and trees, and additionally therefore, a large variety of singing birds. He tells me to read in Psalms for just however long I like. I opened to Psalm 18, where his father has underlined the first two verses. And in the start of the second verse, I can't get past those first words, "The Lord is my Rock..."
When my life is almost completely up in the air, teeming with more uncertainties than anything solid, a rock is what I want. But for my life. My physical, oh so temporary life. I want to make my camp, so to speak, on a rock. I want to stop moving, and just be grounded, so I can have the ability to be happy and peaceful, and enjoy life before it runs out.
"The Lord is my rock..."
I don't know if you ever played on a merry-go-round as a child. And I don't know that if you did, that you abused it and played the way I and my friends did. There was nothing merry about it. It was basically holding on for dear life. Wrapping your limbs around the bars and having the strongest of the group spin it so fast that you were certain beyond the slightest doubt that you looked identical to the scene towards the end of "Twister" -your body completely airborne and hanging on by your own grip. If you've played this game, and seen this movie, you know exactly what I'm talking about, and I hope the memory of it has humored you as much as it has me this morning.
All that to say... This is what I've imagined my life looks like. You don't know if you can hold on through the spinning, and if you lose your grip, where you're going to land when you fall off, and you don't know if you're going to come out with an injury or even the ability to walk straight if you can get up. How can you have peace in the midst of spinning like that? How can you be joyful when everything is so chaotic?
"The Lord is my Rock..."
He stands not only in heaven and outside of this earthly realm, but outside of time. He sits on an immovable throne. He's always been and always will. I think that's why they compared Him to a rock. Rocks don't die.. They kind of just, are. They are solid, and even as the world keeps shifting and aging, they just ARE.
And I've been begging my immovable, unchanging God to be my Rock by means of pinning me down into a situation I'd prefer. I've asked Him more for fixes to my physical situations (which have never been altogether unlivable, just uncomfortable and unpreferable) than for peace. I've been asking Him to preserve a happy, comfortable physical circumstance, rather than peace for the only thing He made in me that will preserve. My mind... My soul.
"The Lord is my Rock..."
He is the peace, the calm and confidence for my heart, my mind and soul. Everything will change around me. I'm not saying He doesn't want me to be happy. He loves me, and I know that. He created all of these beautiful and wonderful things that we can enjoy, all gifts from Him. I think those things are reflections of what we'll get to eternally experience after this life. But in a world that rebels against the way we were created to live, which is a life of fellowship with our Creator, things will shift. They'll be hard, really hard sometimes. But I'm en route to a land that never dies. And so for now, on this decaying, ever changing planet, the Lord is my Rock. The only thing my soul can grasp onto with confidence. My mind doesn't have to reflect my situation. It can stand firm, have peace, and reflect more the stability of the God who created it. He can and will be the fortress and refuge for my heart though wars and storms rage against and around it.
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