I can’t
remember if I heard this story somewhere or if I made it up but this story
keeps on playing in my head and I can’t get it out so I figured the Lord is
trying to get me to write it down.
A
middle aged man takes a group of boys from the youth group to go camping one
weekend. It was the second day that he
had planned on taking the boys on a little hike around the lake. He had planned a whole lesson planned at a
specific point where he knew the there was a rocky beach. Once they arrived at the rocky beach, he told
the boys to each grab a rock that was their rock and which best described them
however they saw fit. So the boys go
about looking for the perfect rock. Some
grab big ones some, some grab small ones, some miscolored and some plain jane rocks. He went around and had each boy explain why
he had picked the specific rock that he had grabbed. One by one each boy explained why they had
grabbed theirs. Many explanations were a
bit superficial but at least he was making progress. The boys who grabbed big rocks talked about
how they didn’t like being called “fat” and at the same time the kids who
grabbed the little rocks didn’t like being called “tiny” and so forth and so on
walls were breaking down and he was making headway into the youth’s lives.
After
all the boys had finished he went on to explain that these rocks are not who
they are. He then goes on to say that
Christ is our rock to which we stand and that all the rocks that these boys had
grabbed were lies. He told them that our
enemy Satan whispers lies about who we are so that we beat ourselves up and
never really become the person that God created us to become. He then told each boy to take a few minutes
for themselves and ask God to show who they are to Him and if they agreed that
they had bought into the lies of the enemy to take a stance that day and throw
their “rock” into the lake as a sign that they won’t listen to that lie
anymore. So the boys spread out a little
bit from one another and sat there quietly and after 10 minutes or so, one by
one each boy was throwing his rock into the lake, all but one.
There
had been one quiet kid who was relatively new to the group and kept pretty much
to himself most of the time. He had
grabbed an average sized, plain jane rock.
Now this kid was on the outskirts of everyone else and the group was
quietly waiting in their group for “Jimmy” to throw his rock in the water but
it wasn’t happening. Now this man was
starting to feel that something was wrong, so he hesitantly walks over to Jimmy
and asks what the matter is. Jimmy had a
few tears on his cheeks. Once again the
man asks what the matter is. Jimmy very
sheepishly says “It’s my rock” in almost a whisper. The man is a bit confused and asked him to
repeat what he had said. He says in a
bit louder voice, “It’s my rock”.
You see
Jimmy had not only bought into the lie that he was average and there was
nothing special about him but he had made the lie his property and had taken
ownership of it. That is what happens to
lies if we don’t rebuke them immediately and allow them to hang around us. We get so used to having them around that we
decide it would be better to take ownership of it rather than allow it to be
there unwantedly. Jimmy was a prisoner
to this rock, to this lie and he couldn’t bare to part with in thinking that it
would literally take away a part of him if he got rid of it and that scared him
to death.
I
believe there are people who walk around with handfuls of rocks and are scared
to death to let go of these lies. These
lies have become their identity and that in itself is a lie. The truth is that Christ is our
identity. He is our rock. He is the only rock to which we cling to and
find true life in Him. I implore you as
you have read this that if there is a tugging in your heart to take action, go
out and pick up a few rocks and ask the Lord to reveal the lies in your life
and then go near a body of water or field or literally anywhere and one by one chuck those “rocks” as hard
and as far as you can and in a loud voice declare your identity. “I am the Lord and the Lord is mine, I will
cling to the True Rock and none else.
Today I am free from the lies that have become my identity. My identity is in Christ!!”
