Where Is Your Stone

I am a fan of rocks…let’s face it…they rock! Ok…I know…really bad joke. Hear me out anyway. I never really like learning about them in school but I am fascinated by them. How can a huge bolder just sit there the way it is? How does it then become a tiny pebble? Some are jagged. Some are made for kids with short attention spans…they sparkle! Some are smooth…these are the ones that intrigue me the most. How does a coarse stone become pure smooth like that?

At our “Walk This Way” Beatitudes retreat this weekend I was given the topic “Blessed are the pure in heart” to speak about Saturday night. I started looking at the heart as if it were a stone that needed to be made smooth. What would it be like to try and smooth a rock with your hands? Would it be possible? Even if you were able to get one area smooth would you accomplish pure smoothness?

The Pharisees constantly tried to smooth themselves out through “Righteous Living” and completely missed the point of why the Law was put in place in the first place. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls His followers to a deeper way of living. The way of a transformed heart. When you might pat yourself on the back and say, “Look at how righteous I am…I haven’t killed anyone all day,” Jesus says, “How is your anger?” He makes you go deeper into your existence and look at the heart of the matter in all things. “You say don’t commit adultery. I say don’t look lustfully on a woman.” It isn’t just about your action but about the center of your being…your heart!

Time for reality…YOU CAN’T DO IT! That is hard to swallow but you can’t. Paul in Romans 7 talks about his struggle with the Law and cries out in verse 24, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Then answers in the next verse, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” It is Jesus who transforms our jagged hearts into the pure heart that we’ve been called to. But how does this happen? (Stop and read Roman 8:1-17…it’ll change your life)

Jesus promises the woman at the well, in John 4, “Living Water” and then a few chapters later in John 7:38 He says, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” And again in Revelation 7:17 “For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water.”

Jesus calls us to take our stones and throw them in the river of Living Water to let His current run over them every day. He calls us to immerse our stones…to baptize our hearts in His Living Water and let His Word, His Spirit, His current smooth out and make pure our rough hearts. Where is your stone? In your hand or in the River?