Our Rock

In caring for a house, I have made one surprising discovery: Houses are anything but still.

They look still. They look stable and immovable. But it’s not true! There’s a reason why they call house care “upkeep,” because you have to keep the house up! It is always falling down in one way or another.

Winds ruffle and rip its shingles. Rain rots its seals. Vines find its walls. Sunshine blisters its decks and trim. Bugs find its chinks. Foundations settle. Drywall cracks. Mice nibble its insulation. And the list goes on.

This refuge I run to – in heat and in storms, in cold and in rain – is not that stable. It is literally breaking down daily, sometimes imperceptibly…but truly nonetheless.

This fragility marks our existence. We are frail and flappable. Even our strongest strongholds won’t hold forever.

Yet we have one sure Foundation.

The psalmists often reach for one reassuring truth about God. In tumultuous times, they recite and declare that God is a rock, the rock, our rock. He is a sure and steady foundation forever.

In Psalm 62, David writes, “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken” (Psalm 62:1–2). David runs together three concepts here: rock, salvation, and fortress. This combination enriches each term with the other. God is a rock, and that means he can save us and protect us. And that God will save us and protect us is a bedrock truth.

These three concepts combine to form an image of unshakeable hope. And so David concludes, “I shall not be greatly shaken.” God’s strength and stability becomes ours when we lean on him.

Over against this image, David asks, “How long will all of you attack a man to batter him, like a leaning wall, a tottering fence?” (v. 3). David knows the vulnerability of the leaning wall and the tottering fence. We’ve all seen such fences rotted and bent. This is the feeling, and this is the reality of our life in the flesh. But God is not subject to these weaknesses.

Again and again, David returns in this Psalm to the imagery of the rock. He sounds the refrain: “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken” (Psalm 62:5–6). Notice that now he is speaking to himself, reminding himself to hold fast to the Rock.

And again he concludes, “On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God” (Psalm 62:7). The key word here is “rests.” David rests his salvation and his glory not on himself or his circumstances but on God the Mighty Rock.

This is the way forward. God is an unshakeable rock, and he can be our rock of redemption.

When all around is falling, we will stand on the Rock.

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