A Resting Place

"From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee, when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I." Ps. 61:2

Even the strongest amongst us still demands a security blanket. Even the most daring performer who walks across a tightrope with no net still demands that an ambulance be present and a well-staffed hospital be within driving distance. As human beings, we all want and need something solid and secure outside and other than ourselves on which our selves can safely dwell. We all desire a "rock that is higher" than us, a foundation other than our own meager souls. What a miserable creature is he who is the highest in his own private universe. When things fall apart (as they invariably do), where can such a one as he turn? Fallen, finite, fallible creatures cannot sustain themselves, cannot be their own resting place; not that we don't try, but that it will never work. Our limited and damaged subjectivity needs to be bound to a perfect objectivity or else it is lost like a ship on the sea without a star in the sky.
The more honest and clear-headed ones amongst us understand this fact, but nobody seems to find the right objectivity, the right"rock that is higher." The things that we find may be more solid and secure than ourselves, but they are always a product of this world, and thus like the world are limited and transient: they can only do so much, and they eventually fade away. Coupled to that is the fact that troubles know no bounds, nor evil any limitations. All of our best efforts will be swallowed up in some kind of darkness and despair, and it is in those moments that we can either look up or go down and out: look up and realize that whatever this "rock" is, it must be not only not of us but also not of this world; or down and out into perpetual cynicism and hellish night.

-Jon Vowell

"My faith has found a resting place,
Not in device or creed;
I trust the ever living One,
His wounds for me shall plead.

I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me."
-Eliza E. Hewitt