The past few weeks have really been about adapting to change. Even more so than the entire Race is about dealing with change. When everything around you is changing, you learn more about who you truly are.
In my senior year of college I was anticipating great change. I found guidance in the counsel of a pretty influential professor. She helped me talk through some of the things I was feeling and eventually pointed me toward missions as a next step. One of the first things she told me, and I’ve referenced this proverb before, was to “be the water, not the fragile rock.”
At the time that we were talking, this was some very good advice. In the face of uncertainty I was holding tightly to some principles I had established for my life rather than allowing God’s rhythm for my life to define my decision-making. By repeating those words in my head, I was able to allow myself to let go and feel where God was leading me.
The other night Janina (I call her Noodge) and I were talking about what it really means to hold to the one truth in Jesus Christ, and how we present the idea of a single truth in a world that seems to have released all hold on the idea of objectivity. Talking about holding to a constant had me thinking again of rocks and water,
The next day my teammates and I each took the morning to seek the Lord individually. I found myself sitting near the small river that is just down the hill from where we have pitched our tents in our host’s back yard. The river runs down from Mt. Kilimanjaro and has many rocks on its bed. I heard the water running over the rocks and began thinking about which God calls us to be. I think he asks us to be the “fragile rock” after all.
The first thing I thought was, “What’s really wrong with fragility, anyway?” I have learned often this year that honestly, authenticity and vulnerability need to be offered before they can be received. And it is only through these postures that we truly begin to live in community. It is only when we begin to offer up our heart that we can learn to grow. “Fragility” need not be a pejorative.
Then I thought about what had happened to those rocks in front of me over years and years of holding their position and allowing the water to run over them, pounding on their surface. Their edges had been softened, they had been smoothed out, and they had become less of an impediment to the flow of the river. As we stand in the world, not always willing to follow the flow of society, we will surely be hurt. We may even lose parts of ourselves, parts of who we believe we are. In the end, though, we will find it easier to exist in the world while holding our position. We will affect the flow, but not obstruct it.
Even if our edges are smoothed, our core will stay the same. Some of the greatest sculptors in history have said that when they received a block that would be a work of art, they try to liberate the form within the block rather than to impose their own shape upon it. Though the rocks in the riverbed have been worn down from their original form, their overall shape, their true identity, remains the same. I believe God has placed our true form within us, but as the Great Sculptor he uses our lives for our liberation. Through trial and change he refines us into the person he originally intended us to be.
Then I thought about how my teacher’s original encouragement to “be the water” had helped me. I wondered where God’s truth was in that experience. Did he call me to be the water for a season? I think he did not. I think rather he provided a storm, and the current of the world around me kicked up and pushed my rock further down the river. I needed to mourn my old position in the river and reorient myself to the facets of my rock that would now be turned up in the water, open for refinement. Sometimes our assumptions and lessons previously learned will be challenged and we will be called to hold less tightly to where we see ourselves to be positioned in the world. God will call us to exist in a different place and allow new parts of ourselves to be worn down, to be refined.
At all times we remember that all things work for the good of those who love him. Remember that your Lord has planted the Truth firmly inside of you. The truth that we experience as so constant, everlasting to everlasting, may actually be called subjective by the world’s standards. It is the truth that God has written on your heart, that you have seen revealed in your experience. It is the truth of the rock you are to be after years of submitting to the waters of his creation.
So hold fast to the truth that is rooted inside of you. Allow the current of God’s life to place where you are called to be. Allow the waters of God’s creation to liberate your true self from your rugged form. Be the fragile rock.
