WORD PICTURE: ROCK
Scriptural References:
Psalm 18: 2 The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.
He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
Psalm 61:2 From the ends of the earth I call to you,
I call as my heart grows faint;
lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
2 Samuel 22:1-4 David's Song of Praise
David sang to the LORD the words of this song when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. He said:
"The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield and the horn of my salvation.
He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior—
from violent men you save me.
I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise,
and I am saved from my enemies.
1. Showing a rock, read Chuck Swindoll’s comment, “I may tremble on the rock, but The Rock don’t tremble under me.”
2. Have someone(s) read each scripture:
3. My sharing, offered to spark sharing by others.
What I Shared
I need to confess how FRIGHTENED I can sometimes be (frightened is an understatement; it’s more like inexplicably terrified).
One example of this state of fright is in a business relationship with a current client. Things are going well -- in fact, things have been going well for months. But the more this goes on, the more frightened I can feel -- like the other shoe is going to drop or something.
Another example is what happened on the way home from a dog obedience workshop with a friend. Our two dogs got to romping in the back of the station wagon. Suddenly, a light went on in the back, and I got this picture (in my imagination) of the trunk flying open and both dogs being flung onto the interstate highway. No lights were lit on my dashboard indicating any problem, but I found myself so frightened by this possibility that I finally had to stop and check the trunk myself. It was, of course, safely shut tight.
These two examples show that, for me, being frightened is a familiar feeling -- unwanted but apparently not unwelcome. My terror on both counts is virtually self-imposed. And I don’t know how I do that. I just know that I DO do that. I guess awareness comes first, then acceptance, then action.
A Christian couple named the Gillams talk about a hungry, nine-foot-tall Kodiac bear, who encounters a hunter in the woods and chases him in hopes of a good meal. The hunter, terrified, runs as fast as he can until he lucks out and finds a deserted hut in which he hides, locked in solid. He is terrified as the bear reaches through the top of the door and he sees the arm reaching, reaching toward thin air. In his terror, the hunter is plastered against the wall, his heart pounding so hard he might actually die from heart failure. What the hunter does not realize is that this cabin is really strong -- made out of railroad ties and tar! It’s not going to budge for any nine-foot-tall Kodiac bear. The hunter is safe inside the cabin. But the bear keeps trying to get in there, and the hunter does not realize that it is really and truly safe. So he dies of fright, despite the facts.
I remembered that story as I was driving home from the current business client. Then two scriptures came to mind: the one that talks about how God puts my tears into a bottle (Psalm 56:8 Record my lament; list my tears on your scroll [or, put my tears in your wineskin]—are they not in your record?). Later, when I was walking my dog, I thought about another kind of bottle -- the canning jar type that clamps shut. The Bible says we must bring every thought into captivity -- into the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ).
Thoughts like the ones I have been having need to be caught by me and clamped shut in that jar. God showed me there is an endless supply of these clampable jars, and endless shelves I can fill to my heart’s content. I need to capture these cockroach thoughts and clamp them in jars and fill God’s shelves with the jars! He wants each thought to be clamped in there tight as a drum -- one per jar, never to be released again. These are not butterflies I am catching -- they are more like vampire bats. But if I don’t start catching them and clamping them shut in jars, I might just die of fright for absolutely no real reason.
In short, I have been trembling on the rock, but I forgot that The Rock isn’t trembling under me. And that it was scripture that came to my rescue once again. So -- my question is:
What, if anything, has got YOU trembling lately?
And what, if anything, does scripture have to say about it?
All Scripture references from the New International Version of the Bible (NIV).
Copyright by Whitney McKendree Moore, August 2007