He is our Rock

We leave this evening for a retreat with our youth group. At the beginning of the retreat, we will be giving each youth (and us) a rock. The idea for this “exercise” came from Group Magazine.

Each person will carry the rock around for the rest of Friday and Saturday. We will ask each youth to think about what is bothering him – what his worries are – what his distractions from God are. He will be asked to think of the rock as a sponge. Hold it. Allow it to absorb his worries. God is our rock, and he will never leave us alone with our worries. He will lighten our loads.

I’ve been asked to explain this exercise to the youth. I was looking around on the Internet for a devotion to use – just a one or two sentence story to give the concept a concrete – ha ha – rock-like foundation.

I found this at Portals of Prayer. That’s significant to our youth group, and to us, the youth leaders. We just finished a youth event called JesusQuest – the theme was doorways, and the band who lead us in worship was Portal.

Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Matthew 11:28

A lady was driving down the interstate, on her way to work. She had a flat tire. She had never changed a tire in her life, although in theory, she knew how it was done. She struggled with it, trying to lift the tire off the car. Before she realized someone had pulled up behind her, hands reached out and lifted the tire, laying it on the pavement. The man changed her tire in no time.

God is like that. He takes our burdens - -things which are too heavy for us to carry, and he helps us with them. He even has taken away sin and death through his son. “His strong hands and arms lighten the load of our crosses in ways we do not even realize. He gives us comfort and rest in all our troubles and burdens. He does it all simply because He loves us.” He is our rock.

Be my rock of refuge,
to which I can always go;
give the command to save me,
for you are my rock and my fortress. (Psalm 71:3)