Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 18 verse 2:
"The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold."
There is an old Bob Seger song "Like a Rock" which is about a man looking back 20 years to the lean and rock-solid body and spirit of his 18-year-old teenage self, whose convictions are strong and dreams great, and is not yet weighed down by life. The chorus has these words:
"Like a rock, I was strong as I could be
Like a rock, nothin' ever got to me
Like a rock, I was something to see
Like a rock."
In our youth we are something to see, strong and invincible -- like a rock. But at some point life takes hold of us. The weight of the world begins to take hold and have its effect on us. Convictions get tested, hard bodies turn flabby, and dreams get broken.
That is the moment of salvation -- when we look up toward a Rock that is stronger than we are.
Richard Rohr says that in the second half of life failure has more to teach us than success does. Failure, frailty, broken dreams, atrophying and even dying bodies -- these are not what we would wish for ourselves. They are certainly not what we imagined for ourselves when we were young and strong; but they are necessary. They are necessary because though we may have at once been young and strong, we were never invincible -- not really. And life has a way of revealing that to us, and driving us to the One and the only One who is truly like a rock.
A prayer:
LORD, when my strength and my body fail me and the indomitable spirit of my youth gets crushed, may I find the way to you, my rock and my salvation.
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