Embracing the rock that does not move

“I have found that when you don’t have what you really want, you will discover that God is all you really need.”

Many times while growing up I have crossed the railroad bridge that spanned the Middle River in Sylvester. The bridge was removed several years ago and only the concrete stone that anchored the bridge on both sides remain. The path through Dan Dunn’s former property that led to the bridge is now grown up with forest and is inaccessible. I remember Boxing Day 2018 when Shirley and I, accompanied by our newly engaged daughter Sarah and her fiancé Jeff attempted to locate this bridge. I recounted many memories of the Dunn property for it led to our home in the woods of Sylvester where my siblings and I grew up. For me, it was a trip through memory lane and now a flood of memories, not all of them positive, engulfed me. Because of all the bushes and trees that blocked our path, it almost seemed impossible to get to the concrete pillars that remained from the time the bridge was first constructed, now almost 100 years ago. The ledge was wide enough to sit on and allowed your feet to dangle over. It was on that ledge that often I spoke to God and shared all my troubles with him and gained the courage to stand in the midst of the growing-up challenges and to anchor my faith on the Rock, like these pillars that did not move. That Rock was Jesus Christ and I emptied my life into this solid Rock that never failed me, no matter how trying the circumstances. In 2 Kings, Chapter 4, we read the story of the Widow’s Olive Oil and the prophet Elisha. Upon her husband’s death she cried out to the man of God as now the creditor was coming to take her two boys as slaves because she could no longer pay back the debt owed. “How can I help you? Tell me what do you have in your house?” She replied, “Nothing at all except a small jar of oil.” Elisha’s response was to tell her to collect as many empty jars from the neighbourhood as possible, to then go back inside your house, shut the door behind you and your sons. Then she was told to pour oil into all the jars until each jar was filled. She did as she was asked, until all jars were filled. When she ran out of jars, it was only then that the oil had stopped flowing. The Man of God, Elisha, then told her to sell all her jars and pay your debts. “You and your sons,” he told her, “can live on what is left.” The widow had found the Rock that does not move and her family was saved as a result of this miracle. I have found that when you don’t have what you really want, you will discover that God is all you really need. In my teenage years in Sylvester, sitting on that rocky ledge overlooking the Middle River, I discovered that truth for myself. God is what you really need and will do amazing things in your life if you just listen to what this Rock, Christ Jesus is telling you. I also discovered from experience to stop waiting for what you want and start working with what you already have. I had a church whose people loved me, an elderly lady, my mentor Mrs. Latham who adopted me into her own family like one of her own and a mother who sacrificed the last penny to help all her children survive the ongoing hardships we faced in those early years. God knows how to do with what little we have to offer Him. The woman with the last remaining single jar of oil offered her last possession to God. So, too, you must offer to God what you have and He will give you what you need. When God tells you what to do, just go and do it. 2 Corinthians 4:7 says: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” The small jar of remaining oil was there all the time waiting for God to move in the widow’s life. The rocky pillars of stone upon which a railroad trestle was anchored provided a way across the Middle River connecting two points of land. The pillars are still there. Through many challenges of life, the solid Rock upon which we stand as God’s children never fails. Do you anchor your life on the Solid Rock that never moves? The words of the hymn: “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”