River Rocks Series: Five Smooth Stones

"And David strapped his sword over his armor. And he tried in vain to go, for he had not tested them. Then David said to Saul, "I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them." So David put them off.
Then he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones
from the brook and put them in his shepherd's pouch. His sling was in his hand, and he approached the Philistine.
And the Philistine moved forward and came near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him.
And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance.
And the Philistine said to David, "Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.
the Philistine said to David, "Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field."
Then David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.
This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel,
and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD's, and he will give you into our hand."
When the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.
And David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the ground.
So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him. There was no sword in the hand of David."
~1 Samuel 17:39-50

This passage was where my study of river rocks and suffering began. It is a familiar story: David and Goliath, the shepherd boy versus the giant. I had read it many times before but this time the wording in verse 40 caught my attention. David had chosen these rocks.

Webster's Dictionary defines the verb, to choose, as:
To pick out; to select; to take by way of preference from two or more things offered; to make choice of.

David was not picking up rocks at random. These would be his only weapons and, since David was a master with his sling, he knew exactly what he was looking for and what would work best. He was carefully choosing the weight, size, shape, and possibly smoothness, of these stones. David was looking for river rocks that had been perfectly prepared for this mission.

There was a process that these "smooth stones" had to go through to become perfectly prepared. A rock is made smooth by tumbling, and I will go more into that process in my future posts. Who knows how long these rocks had been tumbling about in that brook becoming exactly what David needed for that exact time?

There are many lessons in suffering and seeing our circumstances from God's perspective that we can learn from these five smooth stones, the process of tumbling, and David's own life.

Wait

Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried;
Quietly, patiently, lovingly, God replied.
I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate . . .
And the Master so gently said, "Wait."

"Wait? you say wait?" my indignant reply.
"Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!
Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?
By faith I have asked, and I'm claiming your Word.

"My future and all to which I relate
Hangs in the balance, and you tell me to wait?
I'm needing a 'yes', a go-ahead sign,
Or even a 'no' to which I can resign.

"You promised, dear Lord, that if we believe,
We need but to ask, and we shall receive.
And Lord I've been asking, and this is my cry:
I'm weary of asking! I need a reply."

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate,
As my Master replied again, "Wait."
So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut,
And grumbled to God, "So, I'm waiting for what?"

He seemed then to kneel, and His eyes met with mine . . .
and He tenderly said, "I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens and darken the sun.
I could raise the dead and cause mountains to run.

"I could give all you seek and pleased you would be.
You'd have what you want, but you wouldn't know Me.
You'd not know the depth of my love for each saint.
You'd not know the power that I give to the faint.

"You'd not learn to see through clouds of despair;
You'd not learn to trust just by knowing I'm there.
You'd not know the joy of resting in Me
When darkness and silence are all you can see.

"You'd never experience the fullness of love
When the peace of My spirit descends like a dove.
You would know that I give, and I save, for a start,
But you'd not know the depth of the beat of My heart.

"The glow of my comfort late into the night,
The faith that I give when you walk without sight.
The depth that's beyond getting just what you ask
From an infinite God who makes what you have last.

"You'd never know, should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that My grace is sufficient for thee.
Yes, your dearest dreams overnight would come true,
But, oh, the loss, if you missed what I'm doing in you.

"So, be silent, my child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to truly know me.
And though oft My answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer of all is still . . . Wait."

~Russell Kelfer

Tumbling Up

Some of you may already be aware that river rocks hold a special place in my heart. Not only are they beautiful and great to decorate with, there are so many analogies to the spiritual life that can be gleaned from them. I will be turning my study into a series of posts so that you all can enjoy them too.
I would like to explain my blog title to you because it is probably the cleverest thing I will come up with in the course of my lifetime. I you can see, I am quite proud of myself! It has a double meaning: first, for rocks to become smooth and shiny they have to be tumbled. The second meaning is a phrase I took from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. The main character, Pip, is observing children tumbling around a yard and over each other and comes to the conclusion that instead of growing up, the children are "tumbling up." So as I am maturing and growing in Christ, I am "tumbling up."
I am looking forward to my next posting! Christ is risen!

New Name

Hello friends! Soon I will be changing the name of my blog to something amazingly awesome and doing a series of blog posts specific to the new name. It will still be my blog, just a different name. I figured I should let you know beforehand. Happy blogging!

Christ is risen!

God Cares About My Stuff?

Leviticus is not the easiest book to read through. It can be quite boring. And, on top of being boring, it is burdensome and sobering. It reveals God's absolute holiness, righteousness, and justice. The very reading of God's law creates a sense of inevitable failure in the reader. It is meant to be so, as Paul writes in Romans 7:9-13, to show us our sin and need for a Savior.

However, even in the Old Testament law, God reveals Himself to be Love. Sometimes it is tucked into a verse, barely noticeable. At other times, it is God Himself declaring who He is to His people. God is holy, but even in His holiness He lets His steadfast love and mercy be known.

"When you come into the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession, and I put a case of leprous disease in a house in the land of your possession, then he who owns the house shall come and tell the priest, 'There seems to me to be some case of disease in my house.' Then the priest shall command that they empty the house before the priest goes to examine the disease, lest all that is in the house be declared unclean. And afterward the priest shall go in to see the house."

Leviticus 14:34-36 ESV {emphasis mine}

Emptying the house is significant when you think of all the things that would be in the house. Everything needed for staying alive and comfortable (furniture, clothes, kitchen things, food, etc) PLUS any extra luxuries like jewelry or house decorations, and items with personal, sentimental value. Even with a law where clean or unclean is a big deal, God is looking ahead and insuring that His people will be able to keep the things that they need and the little things that are important to them.

I was overwhelmed by God's goodness as I read these verses! Yes, God does care about stuff, and, more specifically, He cares about "my" stuff. The law shows God's harshness towards sin, His judgment, wrath, and holiness, but it also shows us His great mercy, love, and care for us.

Random Thoughts

I have not had as much oppurtunity to blog as I would like, but I hope my random thoughts have been at least interesting. I am working on some bigger posts but I am unsure as to when they will be up. Until then, I leave you with another profound quote. I hope it encourages you to think and then act. We are wrestling against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places; do not make the mistake of separating your faith from current events. Go out and change the world!

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States when men were free."

~Ronald Reagan

A Word From...

...one of my favorite philosophers, Groucho Marx!

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies."

Some Reasons To Be Happy

Today, especially this week, with so much wrong with the world and my mood, I have decided to think about what matters. The weather may be dreary, I may feel under the weather, those that have some power may be seeking more power, but my God is in control and He will return soon! He has blessed me with wonderful friends, family, and things like...

rich dark chocolate...

warm blankets...

soft fuzzy sweaters...

a tuned piano...

the complete set of Star Wars movies...

and coffee!

Love

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because that is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is being "in love," which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."

~Attributed to St. Augustine

"He's Not A Tame Lion"

This is one of my absolute favorite quotes from The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (Forgive me if the quote is only in the movie, I couldn't remember whether it was in the book or not). Aslan, the Great Lion, is a picture of Christ. He created Narnia, he is good, and everything must submit to him. He is also "not a tame lion". That is one of the many things I love about this character: you never know what he is going to do next!
Like Aslan, the God that I serve is not a tame God. God is not boring as most unbelievers suppose and as most believers act. I never know what He is going to do next, my life is an adventure! So live life with breathless expectation, seize the day, and worship our untame God!

"To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways; we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should rather be an expression of breathless expectation."

-Oswald Chambers