It's All About A Rock

God amazed me this week. Again! I hope you will be amazed too.

It’s all about a rock. Not very amazing, I know.

What do you picture when you think of a rock? You know, there are different sizes. I can hold one in my hand and call it a rock. In New England, where I live, there are rocks everywhere in the soil. They can be pretty big to drag out of the dirt. Some rocks are way too big, and I cannot move them.

I was reading Psalm 18 and decided to focus on 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.

I am sure you have read different psalms that say the LORD is my rock. How many times have we read that? But what kind of rock? I've always thought it meant God is a solid place for me to stand. He is the One I can depend on. And of course, those things are true. But I decided to dig a bit deeper.

So, I looked up the meaning of rock in Psalm 18:2, and there are 2 Hebrew words there for rock. The first one is sela, which means crag. That is in the first part of the verse. I had an idea of what a crag is, but I still wanted to know more. I found out that a crag is a large, rugged rock formation that often juts out from a hillside or mountain. It can have cracks, crevices, caves, or sheltered spaces among its rocks.

Doesn’t that give so much more meaning to the word rock?

God has placed us on a crag. We are safe from the enemy below. We are protected. God is shielding us. God is our fortress, and He is our deliverer.

BUT

That doesn’t mean life is easy. Sometimes we feel as though we are standing on the edge of that crag, afraid that we might fall. The circumstances around us feel frightening, and we are not sure which way to turn.

And that’s the point. We HAVE to depend on the LORD. We have to trust Him to be our shield, our crag, our fortress, and our deliverer.

We may not feel safe, but our security is in Him.

The second Hebrew word for rock is tsur, which also describes a strong, rocky formation. Often this word is used to symbolize the strength of God and that we can take refuge in Him, our strong rock.

All of this made me think more clearly about God being my rock.

And then I looked up horn of salvation. I thought it was just an aside.

In the Bible, a horn symbolizes strength and power. Think of a ram or bull using its horns to defend itself against an enemy. When David calls the LORD the horn of his salvation, he is declaring that God is the source of his strength and deliverance.

Did you know that in Luke 1:69, Zacharias (Zechariah), the father of John the Baptist (Jesus’s cousin) prophesied that God “…has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant”? He was prophesying about Jesus.

Do you see what’s so amazing?

When David wrote this, He didn’t know about Jesus specifically. He knew God had promised the Messiah would come from his line. But God used what David wrote and what Zacharius prophesied to point us to Jesus in the Psalms.

God wanted us to know that

• His plan has been from the beginning

• He would bring a horn of salvation through Jesus

• He brought a way for us to live a victorious life in this scary, groaning, unsafe world.

Today, may we be amazed at our God, who can pack so much meaning into just one verse and one word in the Bible, and who can take what I thought was an aside to remind us that Jesus was never an afterthought.

He has always been the way!

Have you come across a simple word or verse that jumped out at you and amazed you? Let me know by emailing me at carol@astorpublishingsolutions.com. I would love to study it too.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." John 14:6