“The Lord is my Rock.”

You are my Rock. In a world where everything changes, where man is fickle and his moods are like feathers in the wind; where nothing is stable, nothing permanent, nothing reliable; in a world of insecurity and instability... you are my Rock

You stand while everything falters. You are firm, steady, eternal. You alone offer security and safety. In you alone can I rest and take refuge and feel at peace. You are my Rock

Round me there are quicksands and marshes and slippery paths and shaky ground. I must be slow and cautious. I cannot run and jump and dance at will. I must mind every step and test every stone. There is painful progress and constant apprehension on the grounds of life. No one I can really trust; nothing I can safely rely upon. Always doubt and suspicion and fear. When everything is unsteady, the mind itself is restless, and peace lies from the soul.

That is my greatest trial, that I myself am not steady. I am a bundle of doubts It is not only that I don’t trust anybody, but that I don’t trust myself. I waver and hesitate and stumble. I don’t know what I want, and am not sure where I want to go. Uncertainty is not only outside me but inside me, very much inside me, in my decisions and my opinions and my beliefs. I take a hundred resolutions and fulfil none; I start on a hundred journeys and reach the end of none. I am a reed shaken by the wind. I lack firmness, and I need desperately someone I can lean on.

And that is you, Lord. You are my Rock. The firmness of your word, the uniqueness of your truth, the permanence of hour eternity. The Rock jutting out in the midst of waves and sands and winds and storms. Just to look at you gives me repose. To know that you are there and I can rest in you. To feel the unshakeable presence of an incarnation in stone. To lean against your slope, safe and secure. In a world of changes, you are my Rock, Lord, and that very thought gives peace to my soul.

“The Lord is my strength and my shield,
In him my heart trusts;
So I am sustained, and my heart leaps for joy,
And I praise him with my whole body.
The Lord is strength to his people,
A safe refuge for his anointed king.”