Nothing Less than the Rock

This morning, I was thinking about castles, oddly enough, since the passage I was reading in James doesn't mention any castles whatsoever. It does mention Job, though, who -- as we know from Scripture -- lost everything in a test of faith, initiated by his enemy Satan who had to have God's permission to administer this stretching, horrific experience to Job.

So, castles. Because of the amount of time I was able to spend in Ireland, as well as the couple of months I've been in Italy and Sicily, I've had the opportunity to walk around inside several castles, explore castle ruins, climb castle stairs, take pictures off of castle walls, walk through castle gardens, and generally revel to my nerdy heart's content over the knights and fair maidens of yesteryear. :)

This morning as I spent some time praying over this passage, three specific castles came to mind.

First, Blarney Castle in Cork Ireland. Most of you will have heard of the Blarney Stone, and the story that if you kiss the Blarney Stone, you receive the "gift of the silver tongue." I am a witness of the fact that this is myth only: I have kissed the Blarney Stone and I still can't make it three sentences in a row without saying: "Um... uh..."

The Blarney Stone is notoriously difficult to kiss. It's not just a matter of walking up to a rock, posing for a second for the camera, and then kissing it. First, you have a several-story high circular stairway to navigate. The steps are incredibly narrow and smooth from years of constant treading and even a little sloped. The only "handrail" is a thick rope that threads straight down from the top of the castle to the bottom, and as you ascend the stairs, you're packed in like sardines among a trillion other tourists. If someone twenty steps above you falls, there would be quite a dangerous domino effect of piled up victims who would also fall nearly straight down these stairs to be smothered at the bottom. 

Why yes, I do suffer from claustrophobia, why do you ask? ;)

When you finally reach the top of Blarney Castle (which, if you haven't seen from pictures) is quite a tall structure, you have to walk along its battlements from one side of it to the other. Not only is it a little dizzying to look out over the gardens and the surrounding countryside, on the other side of the path you're navigating is the interior of the castle, which is a straight drop to the floor a long way below.

Why yes, I do suffer from acrophobia, why do you ask? ;)

When you finally reach the Blarney Stone itself, there's no rope and pulley system or winch or elevator or anything that lowers you off the side of the castle a few feet to give you easy access to the stone. Instead there's a friendly "helper" person who glances up at you and says, "Lie down on your back here, darlin', and I'll hold on to you. Don't worry, I haven't lost any for a while now."

So you lie down on your back with your head and torso hanging off the side of the castle (yep, that's me in the picture, along with my "helper," too many years ago). There's a stone wall that extends out from the side, so that as you lean back -- waaaay back -- you see the sky far above you, the ground far beneath you, and this stone wall next to your forehead. You feel the steady hands of the helper on your waist as you stretch backward. "Just a little farther. You're nearly there." 

I tried to kiss the wrong stone, apparently. I was at what I thought was my maximum reach, and I gave the rock wall a peck, ready to come back up (that ground is a long, long way away at that point. There are metal bars in place to keep you from plunging to your death, but it would still hurt very badly to fall head first on those things).

The helper said, "Not yet, dear, that's the wrong one." So, flustered, I stretched beyond what I thought I could possibly reach. I found the correct stone, and I kissed it. And then I had the blessed relief of feeling my husband grasping one hand and the funny Irishman grasping my other and pulling me back to safety.

"How was that now?" the helper asked, and I think my response was along the lines of "Poifh adoij." So, kissing the Blarney Stone works. ;)

The second castle I'm thinking of is Dunluce Castle in Northern Ireland, near the Giant's Causeway. It's the beautiful ruins of a palatial and fortified residence, and while I forget most of the stories I read on the plaques as we navigated the grounds, I do remember one story in particular.

At the far reaches of the castle, where the walls line the cliffs that drop far, far down into the pounding surf of the sea, there's a plaque that tells the story of how, a few centuries ago, the surf had pounded for so long and so hard at the foundations of the castle and the ground on which it was built... that the earth underneath the castle kitchens collapsed, and the entire back half of the castle, the kitchens, and all the inhabitants unfortunate enough to be in that part of the castle, slid to their death into the waters below.

Pretty sure I've had nightmares over that little plaque. How horrific!

The last castle is one of my own making when I was seven years old, sitting on the shores of one of the Sicilian beaches with my family. The waves at the beach were extra large that day and they intimidated me, so rather than trying to jump them, I contented myself with building a spectacular sand castle instead. The sand, I found, was easily moldable, and I went to town on the moat, which I dug so deeply, that its depth was the length of my arm.

Nearby, an Italian girl around my own age stood and watched me. She talked to me, and though I couldn't understand what she said, she sounded like my mom sounded when she was irritated about something. The girl folded her arms over her chest and frowned at me as I kept digging out my awesome moat. I just ignored her; she didn't seem happy with me, but I wasn't sure why.

I worked on that castle for a long time, and that girl stayed nearby, still talking to me, scolding me for whatever reason, and I continued ignoring her. I was proud of what I'd built. It had all sorts of cool features. But inevitably, the time came for our family to leave, and my parents packed up. I didn't want to leave my castle, but I couldn't take it with me. 

As soon as I began to walk away with my parents, the girl came over and kicked over my castle, pawing sand back into my moat, trampling over the whole area. I tugged on my mom's hand. "Mom, she just knocked down my castle!"

I don't remember what my mom said, but I remember I wasn't allowed to go back and confront the girl. I had to walk away knowing that my hard work of nearly a whole day was as if it had never been.

Okay, why the long diatribe on castles? Here's what came to mind when I was reading James 5:7-12: "Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. You, too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near. Don't grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!"

And then James brings Job in as an example of what it means to stand firm, to be patient in the face of adversity, to persevere when circumstances seemed to be completely against him. What was it that Job was able to see that his wife and his friends didn't see? He didn't know his end story, and neither did his friends, right?

But he had faith that the Lord would bring about His good work through the inconceivably hard things he had to endure. He stretched outside his own head and found that the Lord was full of compassion and mercy, despite what it looked like in the moment. James 5:11 says: "You have seen what the Lord finally brought about [as a result of Job's sufferings]. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy" (James 5:11).

You have seen what the Lord finally brought about. 

Does God always double our wealth and possessions and children as He did after Job had suffered through all of his trials? Does He always replace the things that are taken from us? 

I would say no, He doesn't always replace.

But... He does always restore. 

Does His restoration always look like we think it's going to look? 

Rarely, if ever. Restoration is not replacement. Restoration is making whole and complete again, but often, that wholeness and completeness looks different from the original model.

The point is that because Job stood firm on a solid foundation, that is, on his faith in God and His goodness, the battering sea could not wash out his foundation, because his foundation was not built on the unstable structure of sand. His castle was built of the Rock -- instead of the sand that was subject to the trampling feet of his enemies. That seemingly unattainable place where Job's faith had to touch to stay strong and stand firm, to entrench itself, seemed so far away, so far beyond his reach, so upside-down from what his normal perspective was... that it seemed he'd never find his assurance.

"Just a little farther. You're nearly there," say the helpers who surround us, who pray for us, who remind us of our Rock when we feel like we've gone as far as we can.

One thing about the Lord: He's all about stretching His body. I've learned -- as I've taken up running again over the last few months -- that it doesn't pay to skip this essential step. Because I injured my calf muscle on a run several weeks ago, because I didn't stretch like I should have, it took over a month and the frustration of stopping mid-run several times since then to deal with a re-injury, a re-strain, all because of my original lack of stretching.

So as James points to the Judge Who is standing at the door, as he's telling the church to prepare for the next great event on the calendar for the church -- that is, the second coming of Christ -- he reminds us all: patience, perseverance, steadiness, immovability on the Rock -- Christ Himself.

As the old hymn goes: 

My hope is built on nothing less 
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness...

In verse three (all the verses are good; these words just stood out to me today):
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand!
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

Applying this to myself (join me in the application process, if you like): 

I often feel like I'm digging a hole in the sand, a deep moat as long as my arm. I shovel back against the tide, firm up my trenches, pack my walls -- until the first trickle of sand falls through my efforts, and then the rest follows, and everything I've done feels fruitless and ineffective, a hole in the water.

I have often planted my feet firmly on a stance, ready to defend it against the battering voices that come against it, until it collapses beneath me and buries me beneath the currents of I-told-you-so's and you-should-have-known-better's.

I have often stretched and stretched and stretched some more to find that firm sticking place for my faith that Job found, but I have felt my balance give way as the goal moves farther and farther off. 

When the Lord brought that song to mind this morning, I remembered the simplicity of this walk with my Jesus. I've over-complicated it, you know? It's not about my efforts. It's not about my castle. I can have all the turrets and battlements and silver-tongue stones in the world. But unless I've planted my feet on the only immovable foundation -- that is Christ, the solid Rock -- all other ground is sinking sand. 

Let's get rid of our castles. Let's move into the only One built of solid Rock. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.