— Spiritual food for today —

Rock & Sand

In this morning's pre-dawn darkness and before I could lock unto the things of God, my mind took off and transported me back to a familiar town of the early ‘40s.  In vivid detail, I mentally walked through its park, streets, stores and three movie theaters; even around and through our family’s four-room cottage on a washboard-like, country dirt road.  Names, prices, places, faces and spaces all appeared as clearly as printed on this page.  So disturbingly real, I wondered if the episode signaled a crashed mind-drive ... or if that’s what happens just before one dies.  Very unsettling.

When consciousness finally grabbed the reigns, I was struck with the difference between things of that period and those of today.  Only functionally are many even comparable.  By virtue of workmanship or quality of materials, older items had intrinsic value, as few do today.  From copper pennies and silver coins, to real wood furniture and real leather shoes, things of themselves, were valuable.  Today, most are merely functional and inherently worthless.  In a way, an improvement.  It discourages from placing inordinate value on the nuts, bolts and trinkets of life.

There are lessons in all this and the Spirit was quick to teach.  “School” opened when quickened to the chorus of an old hymn: “On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand/ all other ground is sinking sand/ all other ground is sinking sand.”  It sharply reminds that things of this world are transient and need be viewed as such.  Not as tightly held treasures.  For we born-agains, material things should be valued to the extent they glorify God, meet needs and assist in living for Him.  In this materialistic culture, the flesh finds no shortage of temptations.  But, only God’s changeless Word and Jesus Christ, the portal to eternal life and all hope, should be truly treasured.

My schooling continued in the stanza leading up to that blessed chorus: “My hope is built on nothing less/ Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness/ I dare not trust the sweetest frame/ But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.”  Its lesson is clear.  We dare not place our trust in riches, wages, sages ... or even dearly beloved ones.  All are "sand" and will change.  Some will evaporate, others will truncate, vacillate or entirely vacate.  They cannot anchor our faith.  We need to cement our feet to the Rock of our salvation; to Jesus.  “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul ...” (Heb 6:19).

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