On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand

What is it about climbing?  Rocks, mountains?  I just love them!

This past Sunday my room mate and I went for a walk and ended up at the Wellness Center; "Let's try the walk wall!" she said enthusiastically.  I finally agreed...homework can wait till the morning.  As I climbed up, one hand hold at a time, one step at a time, I thought of what it really takes to make it to the top - and the spiritual object lessons as well.  First you have to keep going not matter what.  You have to keep looking up, - higher and higher - at where your going to place your hand next.  I found that for the harder climbs it was helpful to watch what handholds other people had used.  The hardest part for me honestly was letting go, I would hold on tightly to the handholds - even if I wasn't sure where to go next - but to just let go and let the rope hold me and take me back down when I was done climbing...now that was a little scary!  It made me realize how much I really do struggle with trust.  Can I really trust the rope?  Would it really hold me?  What would it feel like to have my hands on nothing and just be hanging in the mid air?

How often do I have the same attitude in my spiritual life?  Yes, there's a climb, but where is my trust?  Is it in the almighty arm that holds me up?  Is it the tie of my Jesus' love that holds me up to my Heavenly Father?Or is it my grip on where I'm at right now?  Could it be that in the Christian race, the climb, the journey, I may get so focused on where I'm at right now - just trying to hold on with a tight grip - that I forget who is holding me?  One of my favorite quotes says of Jesus:  "In taking our nature, the Savior has bound Himself to humanity by a tie that is never to be broken.  Through the eternal ages He is linked with us.  "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son." John 3:16"  Desire of Ages 25.  I have every reason in the world to trust myself to my Savior!

The other vital principles were looking up (not down!), and watching how others climbed.  This weekend we had a beautiful retreat for the class "Intro to Ministry".  For one of our activities on Sabbath afternoon we were to write out all the different life experiences that had impacted us.  In the discussion that concluded Dr. Tryon told us that the purpose is to keep going forward (although we need to learn from our past), as Paul said:   "But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."  Phil. 3:13-14.  In climbing looking down only makes you dizzy and totally loose focus on where your are headed up next!

Friday night at retreat we read the Hebrews 13:7:  "Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow...." and talked about the importance of learning from the spiritual leaders God has placed in our lives.  It is always helpful to learn from observing other people!  As Paul says to the Corinthians:  "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ."

1 Cor. 11:1 

As I begin a new week of classes, the restful Sabbath hours ended, the pressures of assignments and deadlines to meet, I have to challenge myself, am I looking up?  Am I following the foot steps of my Master who I walked this way before hand?  Am I holding on to the tie that can never be broken?  How thankful I am that the love our master rock climber has for us is a love that "neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from.  Nay in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us!"  Romans 8: 38, 39, 37

"A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord, A wonderful Savior to me, He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, Where rivers of pleasure I see.  He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock That shadows a dry, thirsty land; He hideth my life in the depths of His love, And covers me there with His hand, And covers me there with His hand." 

-Fanny Crosby