It is Sunday and I just cannot resist giving a little A little Sunday School lesson this morning.
Let’s talk about Rocks. Not this kind of rock: “Dude you rock” or ” Rock on Garth” or “It’s only rock and roll but I like it” (and I do by the way).
I want to talk about stones, boulders: ROCKS.
My favorite book, the Bible, has something important to say about these commonplace objects. In Joshua chapter 4, the Lord was about to do something miraculous for and with His children, known as the Jews or Israelites. The Lord was about to move over a million people and their possessions through a river that was swollen full due to the season of the year. It is highly probably that few of these people actually knew how to swim, owing to the fact that they had been camping out in the desert for the past 40 years or so.
You probably remember the story- for the second time in their recent history, God parted water. He held it back long and well enough so that over a million people could walk through from one bank to the other on dry land. Imagine how long this could have taken. God must be pretty strong.
The part I want to emphasize this morning is not the miracle of piling up water. That is apparently no big thing for our God. I want to emphasize piling up rocks. God told Joshua that He would hold back the water long enough to have 12 men go back to the middle of the river, pick up 12 stones, as large as they could carry, and stack them up on the other side in an organized pile. The Lord intended (if you will allow me to presume here) for these simple everyday rocks to become the catalyst for many more miracles to come. Miracles far greater than the one Israel just witnessed.
He told them to pile up the stones at the riverbank so that when their children and the children to follow would ask “What do these stones mean?”, the fathers could tell their kids and grandkids about the miracle that God performed that day when He parted water to allow safe passage for those He loved. He anticipated that men’s hearts would be changed as fathers retold the story of God’s faithfulness toward His family.
I know a modern day family that has just such a rockpile at their home, right at the front door. They have written dates on smooth stones and piled them up neatly at the front door. I asked them about the rocks and their writing on them and they began to tell me and my family the long story of God’s goodness to their family, even through difficult circumstances. It stirs emotions in me still today, though we have long since moved from that city and lost contact with those people.
We owe it to our children to build such rockpiles. It is important that we men tell our kids and others of the wonderful acts of our faithful God. We forget so fast. Seems we tend to, over time, shift credit for God’s works into our own account. You know those times when we beg God just to save our sorry heinie from some circumstance of our own doing, then time and pride taint the memory to assign our salvation to our own cleverness . . .
I suppose a literal pile of stones is not necessary, and could be impractical if one lives on the fourth floor. But I do think that is important for us to display clever and mysterious clues that point to God’s goodness to us. It is good to encourage ourselves to speak of the creator in terms of His fingerprints upon us, his children. Imagine parties at your house and how the usual banal discussions of our careers might be redirected as guests discover your clever rockpile and inquire about it.
Our Lord so easily becomes just a concept. Just God. Don’t we all deal with feeling distant from Him from time to time?
Somehow, for me at least, seeing the gospel written on another’s life always draws me back to Him. Hearing of His excellent goodness toward a friend or family member softens my foolish and prideful heart. The challenge here for us all is to pile up rocks where people will see them and ask about their importance. I tend to hide the rocks in my heart.
Does God still do miracles? Yes, every time a dad tells his son or daughter about our Lord’s faithfulness at least one heart loses some hard scales. That is a miracle every time. Miracles are performed in marriages every day when spouses look back and remind each other of how good God has been through the hard and good times. Miracles can happen when friends see the gospel written upon the history and fabric of our lives.
Stumble It!