“Secure whatever ill betide…”
The Rock: His works are perfect,
and the way he works is fair and just—
a God you can depend upon, no exceptions… (Deuteronomy 32:4 The Message)
Our yard is strewn with rocks. Huge rocks. Boulders.
No, they weren’t left behind when the glaciers receded. We put them there.
On one occasion, when we couldn’t get a rock delivered, I had the quarry load it on the tailgate of my jeep, which I then drove home and backed into place. Grandmother, Carolyn and I rolled the boulder off the tailgate into a hole we’d prepared. It landed in the exactly right place with a resounding “thud” that may have registered on the seismographs at Boise State University. It remains there to this day—steadfast, unmovable.
Rocks are like that, you know: mute witnesses to immutability. They never change.
The world does, however: Disorder is the order of the day. “Restless nations in commotion.” Raging chaos and confusion, wild perturbation. Alarming flux and change.
Not so with God. He’s a rock.
The Lord’s our rock, in Him we hide,
A shelter in the time of storm
Secure whatever ill betide
A shelter in the time of storm.
David Roper
9.27.21
