Laboring on the Rock

When I was much younger, I can remember spending my Labor Days raking leaves or helping in some type of yard work. When I insisted to my parents that it was a holiday, they always insisted the "labor" part meant work. Now that I'm older, I'm on to them. So when my husband said Saturday morning that he wanted to do a little fishing in a spot he found on the Towaliga River in Monroe County, I was all over it. So while he packed his rod and reel and tackel box, I packed my book bag with all my essentials and asked him to throw a beach chair in the bed of his truck.

I can't say I'm a real "woodsy" person; after all, I have this aversion to snakes and black bears. But he was able to drive me practically up to the river's edge, assuring me there were no bears. (Come to find out there are. He also forgot to mention the cougar -- and so I got a quick review about what to do should I encounter either.) But once I crossed over into "Eden," I forgot about what wild animals or slithering creatures might be lurking around the next bush.

The entrance to "Eden."

"Eden"

Within minutes, Sandy was off in the distance wading in the shoals and doing his thing -- fishing;

and I was doing mine.

Throughout the OT, God is portrayed as a large rock. For one: The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my saviour; my God is my rock in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the strength of my salvation, and my stronghold (Ps. 18:2).

One of the things I had included in my book bag was the Sunday School lesson I was preparing to teach the next day: Daniel 2 - which speaks of Nebuchnezzar's dream and Daniel's interpretation. The vision sports an alarming figure of a man that shakes Nebuchadnezzar to the core. It was a dream that covered the prophetic panorama of Gentile history from Nebuchadnezzar's reign unto the forthcoming reign of Israel's Messiah.

But the dream ends with what else but a rock that will smash this statue to smithereens. God's eternal kingdom that is more powerful than any other kingdom ever known or ever will be. The kingdom of Jesus Christ. In that day, every earthly kingdom will be carried away in the wind, and the rock that struck the statue will become a great mountain that fills the whole earth.

Can I just stop a minute and shout "Hallelujah!"?

Whereas I sat on a large slab of rock, there was a taller rock just to my right. But what was so interesting to me was the backside of that large rock.

1 Peter 2:4-5a reads, Come to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God's temple. He was rejected by the people, but he is precious to God who chose him. And now God is building you, as living stones, into His spiritual temple...

As I looked at those stones there that morning on the banks of the Towaliga River, I thought of the church, the believers, you and me, who not only rest on the Rock but are being built in His spiritual temple. Not a church made with brick or mortar, nor one we can enter and sit in comfortable pews, but one made of faithful men and women scattered everywhere who with power can smash this world's kingdoms to smithereens.

You and I are precious stones in the kingdom because the living Rock has said, "Come!"

A couple of very precious "stones" who went back with us the next week.

Just an ordinary moment...