My Rock

Because He loved them, He had called them out of Egypt as His children. It was God who led them with cords of human kindness, and with bonds of love. It was the Lord God who cared for the children of Israel all along the way as they traveled through the wilderness, just as a father cares for his child. But they were like ignorant rebellious children who did not understand the love of their father. When their pathway led through a dry and barren land, they raised their fists to the heavens in anger and cried, "Is the Lord among us or not?"

God did not destroy them when they complained against Him and challenged His love. From the beginning His plans were not for their calamity but to give them a future and a hope. Moses feared for his life because of the great anger the thirst had caused in God's people. The Lord told Moses, "I am going to stand there in front of you on the rock at Horeb; when you hit the rock, water will come out of it and the people will drink" ( Exodus 17:6). But if the Lord was standing in front of the rock the rock was not the only thing that was struck.

These are not just stories of antiquity. "Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope" (Romans 15:4). And what is hope for a Christian? It is a confident expectation of good based on the promises and person of Jesus Christ. Hope that is seen is not hope at all. Because hope is based on faith, a confidence in things unseen.

The name of the rock in the wilderness was Horeb. It means, "to dry up, be in ruins, lay waste." But there was a spiritual rock that stood before that dried up, ruined, wasted place, His name is Jesus.The children of Israel all drank from the same spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4).

Jesus came to a woman who had been laid waste and ruined by life, and offered her living water. He said to her that whoever would drink of the water He gave would never be thirsty again. "The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:14). Jesus also told this woman that the Father was seeking those who would worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Lord Jesus, I have tasted the living water that you give, and I know that even if the path I'm on today seems desolate, it is the one You've chosen and will lead me home. The greatest desire of my heart is to worship You in Spirit and in truth and not to rebel in ignorance against You.