Rocks have been a major part of my life for as long as I can remember. My grandfather, and his brother before him, travelled to northern Ontario in the early 1900s to explore rocks, in search of minerals. As a teen, my father went to the Haileybury School of Mines to study rocks, and then worked as a "rock hound" or prospector for twenty-five years. His oldest brother, who lived and worked until nearly eighty, hunted rocks all his life.

My father collected rocks. He had rocks in the house, in the basement, and in the garage. He had rocks in his office, when he worked as the court clerk. At home, we were surrounded by rocks: in the living room, in the kitchen, in the bedroom, and sometimes in the bathroom. When we sold my parents' house, we had to arrange for a friend to haul away a half-ton truck full of rocks.

As a student in university, I remember visiting the legislature building for the Province of Ontario at Queen's Park, where at that time there was on display in a glass case the largest rock of natural silver extracted from a mine in Ontario, in which my father's uncle had been involved. As I recall, it weighed more than a piano, though much smaller. I was never more proud of my ancestors as pioneers in the opening up of the wilderness of the great Canadian shield.

Having visited the towering Rocky Mountains on several occasions, I am humbled and amazed when I read in the Bible that God is great enough to measure "the waters in the hollow of his hand" and to weigh "the mountains on the scales" (Isaiah 40: 12, NIV).

But even more astonishing is the truth that God not only holds the rocks, all the rocks, in His hands - but He is the Rock! David personally celebrates knowing God as "my rock".

Why is this image of God as a rock - or, more so, THE ROCK, so significant?

A rock is a firm place to stand, contrasting with shifting or sinking sand. Jesus told the parable of the wise man who built his house on solid rock, contrasting the foolish one who built his house on shifting sand, with the result that in the storm the arrival of wind and rain led to the collapse of the house that had no firm foundation, whereas the house on the rock remained standing after the storm subsided.

The psalmist celebrates the same truth in a personal experience of delivery: "He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand." (Psalm 40: 2, NIV) To have a place to stand gives one a sense of security and well-being.

The ancient peoples used large rocks to mark the boundaries of property, indicating the limits of one's family land. "Do not move an ancient boundary stone set up by your forefathers." (Proverbs 22: 28, NIV)

It was important for the peace and harmony of a community that neighbours knew where each other's property began and ended.

Rocks form the foundation of the earth. God is the Creator of this earth, and He tells us that He is the Rock. If we know God as rock, we know where we are, and need not fear where we stand. In the storms of life, we will stand secure.

Deuteronomy 32: 4 - He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. (NIV)

Have you found the rock - the solid rock? Do you know Jesus as the rock of your salvation? "My God is my rock."

Your Pastor, standing on the Rock,
James T. Hurd