Devotion 372 - Rock

I grew up in a very different time.

I am grateful.

Our days were spent in the backyard and all the backyards up and down our street.

Our neighbors knew us well.

There were no play dates or organized outings.  There was sunshine and hoses and swing sets and mocked up football fields. We knew and loved each other deeply.

I remember when the boy down the block got in trouble with the law and every parent on the street thought it was “their” fault.  We were a village and villagers cared big.

When a neighbor set out a lounge chair, he set out two or three knowing someone would join him.  To this day, I consider one of my best childhood friends the man down the street.  Mr. C always had a chair out for me,  always was ready to listen to the whimsy of my five-year old mind and never seemed to tire of our talks.  Today that man has a special place in heaven.

I remember my mom and dad announcing the seasons by the look of the fields behind us.  We were raised with the enchantment of a forest preserve behind us.  When mother could see the brown becoming green, she would look for her forsythia to bloom and then it would begin,  Sprinter.

The air still cold, but the days slightly longer, winter was slipping away and spring was beginning.  Then my Dad with the wisdom of the greatest weather man would pick the Saturday for our Sprinter outing.

 It was a game of sorts.  A walk that seemed to last the entire day, we would enter the forest preserve to find the signs of spring.  My brother and I would watch for the sounds of awakened wildlife, the sprouts of new buds and the birthing colors of what looked like dead ground.

Daddy would tie the long rope on our beagle knowing he would scare up bunnies, foxes and quail.  We would wait and count how many animals we could see and take turns trying to keep the dog from chasing and hunting.

Finally we would get to the far flung reaches of the fields.  The farthest most edge was bordered by a river.

Daddy would measure if he felt we could cross.  The melting snow would have caused rushing waters but inlets here and there allowed passages.  We would press to go a little farther and dare just a little more.  We knew there were rocks just below the surface; we would see them in the heat of summer, but now other than a wave hitting off a corner they were almost impossible to find.  It was still fiercely cold, too cold to take the risk of falling in, yet my brother and I would beg to try. 

Daddy would begin, “don’t tell mother,” and the two of us, often hand in hand would try to cross the inlets where the current was tamer and the water more shallow. 

Today, some forty years later, my father still lives on a river.  It is part of him.  As the warm air arrives, my children beg to go to the park just on the other side of grandpa’s river.  They are fortunate, there are beautiful brick lined walks and if the weather allows we forge our way. 

Funny though, I insist they cut a wide swath on the far side of the water.  You see I have felt the sting of the cold water and I want to spare them that shock.

We grow up and the waves become more than water and the current more than the rushing passage of gravity and time. 

Life, death, people, projects, all seem to well up together to overwhelm and overtake and suddenly our footing seems unsure and our God very invisible.

We step out seemingly alone blinded to the foundation we knew once was there, the protection once felt.  Faith has seemed to hibernate and hope lost in fear.

We have to seek.  We have to search for the signs of life, the promises we had memorized and the truths we have buried in the winter of our soul.

We open scripture and we find.  We rest even for a moment and the Holy Spirit reminds.  The waves are furious, life often cold, yet He has never changed; it is our vision that has.  The rock, the foundation remains.

The projects perhaps had produced pride and blinded us to the architect.  People, perhaps they have disappointed.  But Jesus just beneath the rushing of this life, He has told us to rest, to seek, to find, and to knock; HE is the sure foundation.   

We start out tentatively at first, sure the cold of isolation may be our undoing, but slowly as we let go of self sufficiency we feel the sure course of foundation.  We slip and the cold grip of failure sears our souls, yet the Father does not measure failure, he measures faith.

The willingness to give it all to Him, to risk it all for Him and to walk not in the steps of others but behind Him.  Bizarre truly how the easiest path is the one less traveled, the one less encumbered by the busyness of life; the one carved by a single pair of feet leading to righteousness. 

 

I love you, Lord; you are my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety. I called on the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and he saved me from my enemies.

Psalm 18:1-3