Written by Reid Monaghan
[This article was originally published on Power of Change]
Would you rather have life be stable, static, and unchanging? Dependable and rock-solid? Or would you rather have life be wild, chaotic, dynamic, and untethered? Fully unpredictable? It is an interesting question particularly in times of rapid change, crisis, and chaos. In the diversity of human personality there are obviously many of us that would lean in one direction or another.
In the ancient world the ideas of constancy versus constant change were debated among the philosophers as to the nature of ultimate reality. In the constancy corner, you had the incomparable Plato arguing for his unchanging forms. The real things behind all the things. In the dynamic corner you had old Heraclitus and his classic quote about rivers:
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. - Heraclitus
I recently began thinking about this interplay with the steady and the dynamic and what we really need out of life. If everything was unchanging, quite literally, there wouldn’t be much going on. No excitement, no dynamism, and certainly no fluidity in relationships. If everything was in constant flux and unpredictable life would evolve quite literally into some sort of insanity. The possibility for any planning or dependable science would cease to exist. There would be nothing you could depend upon day by day.
Recently our family was reading in a devotional book on the book of Psalms by Timothy and Kathy Keller. I was struck by this line were Keller quotes Alec Motyer:
They (the psalms) put their undeviating understanding of the greatness of the Lord alongside our situations, so that we may have a due sense of the correct proportion of things.
Quoted in Keller, The Songs of Jesus, viii (emphasis added)
Here we see something, or more properly an understanding of someone, presented as undeviating. God is the one who is constant and unchanging in his character and nature. As such he is ultimately dependable and our Northstar for truth, beauty, and goodness. At the same time this truth is put alongside our situations. Human life and relationships have a wonderful dynamism to them, yet we do not engage them without a compass. The wild and chaotic fluctuations of life are seen and understood in their proper proportions related to that which is unchanging and true.
In the created world there are two entities which the Scriptures use to describe these realities: the Rock and the Ruach. The first is an English word with which we all are familiar. The second word is an ancient Hebrew word (רוּחַ) for spirit, breath, or wind. One is solid. One is mysterious and dynamic. I believe that God has created human life such that we need and desire both of these realities.
The word of God, both written and living is the foundational truth by which we need to see all other things. As the hymn writer Edward Mote once penned, “on Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.” Furthermore the same Christ taught us about the mystery of the Spirit of God and the blowing of the wind in the gospel of John:
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." - John 3:8
The Bible is replete with these images of both rock and ruach.
2 The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. 3 I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. - Psalm 18:2-3
1 For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. 2 He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken...5 For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. 6 He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. 7 On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. - Psalm 62:1,2;5-7
24 "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. - Matthew 7:24-25
"If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." - John 8:31-32
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. - 2 Corinthians 3:17-18
We all need a rock in our life and a foundation for all that we are, all that we do, and all that we endeavor to do in this world. We also need to be led by the spirit into the dynamic and uncertain realities of life and relationships under the sun. We need both.
In times that we live in, there are many uncertainties, but the solid foundation remains true. God is the anchor to life that always holds. God in his kindness has given us both rock and ruach. We follow the unchanging one into our ever changing world again and again and again.
In your world today do you need more rock or ruach? Do you need to find a firm foundation for your life? Or do you need to follow a be a bit more free and Spirit led?
