Do you ever feel like you are not much more important than a rock? Just an unglamorous, maybe even uncelebrated rock.
Sometimes just the day-in, day-out mundaneness of life can get us down. God doesn’t call us to one fabulous mountain top moment after another. Most of the time it is one step in front of another obedience, mostly in small things.
However, even rocks will cry out to God if nobody else does. In the book of Joshua in the Bible, Joshua set up a stone as a witness to his people that it had heard all the words God had spoken to them. Joshua said that it would be a witness against them if they were untrue to God. (Joshua 24:27) Also in Luke when Jesus’ followers were proclaiming that He was the king come in the name of the Lord and the Pharisees tried to quiet them, Jesus said that if the disciples stopped, the stones themselves would cry out the truth.
I think one of the hardest disciplines of all in life is to learn to just be, no matter where God might have us at the moment, even if we feel like a rock. Oswald Chambers asserts that, “So often we mar God’s designed influence through us by our self-conscious effort to be consistent and useful. Jesus says that there is only one way to develop spiritually, and that is by concentration on God.” This is so hard for me to believe. I am always fascinated by nature: rocks, trees and animals freely living out their God designed plan without worrying about if they are useful or not. I have such a difficult time relaxing into God’s plans for me and just learning to be.
The amazing thing is, that it is actually God’s plan for us to be living stones in His spiritual house. I Peter 2:4-5 says, “As you come to Him, the living Stone- rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to Him- you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house.” I love this term, “living stone”, because it means that even if I feel like gravel or a diamond, God is using me in His kingdom, it is just in His way and in His time. The other thing I like about this verse is that it was written by Peter who knew all about going from feeling outcast and useless to actually having his name changed to “Rock” by Jesus Himself and becoming a part of His kingdom.
So even if today doesn’t feel that exciting, know that God is doing a great work in you. Lean into Jesus even if circumstances aren’t what you wish they were. Obey even when it seems boring. As Oswald Chambers also said, “if we keep concentrated on Him we will grow spiritually as the lilies.”–or rocks!
“‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ‘Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’ Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples!’ ‘I tell you,’ He replied, ‘if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.'” Luke 19:38-40
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