“Be Thou to me a rock of habitation, to which I may continually come.” Psalm 71:3
Jesus is my rock of habitation. He is my rock – a strong, firm, dependable fortress. This strong fortress is also a place of habitation. He is my dwelling place, a place of comfort, rest, and security. My rock of refuge is never changing, always present, and never moving. Yet I come to it continually. I inhabit my home of rock, yet I also leave it and must frequently return.
It is a testimony to my own weakness that I am so prone to wandering from my place of security and comfort. Yet in the flesh this will always be a limitation I must contend with. Right now as I meditate and ponder and pray, I am more keenly aware of what a treasure my rocky fortress is, yet I know that later, when my mind is occupied with other things, this awareness will lessen. And even now, with all my attention focused on Jesus as my rock, my capacity to grasp the glory of it is limited. I must continually come and constantly return to my rock of habitation. I need God to revive me again and again, day after day. The more I come to my Rock, the more fully I grasp His glory, the more I groan knowing that I cannot hold this glimpse for very long. Yet the more I return, the more I want to stay. John Owen, one of the great puritan thinkers and writers describes it this way in The Glory of Christ:
“Alas! We cannot here think of Christ, but we are quickly ashamed of, and troubled at, our own thoughts; so confused are they, so unsteady, so imperfect. Commonly they issue in a groan or a sigh; Oh! When shall we come unto Him? When shall we ever be with Him? When shall we see Him as He is? And if at any time He begins to give more than ordinary evidences and intimations of His glory and love unto our souls, we are not able to bear them, so as to give them any abiding residence in our minds. But ordinarily this trouble and groaning is amongst our best attainments in this world, – a trouble which I pray God, I may never be delivered from, until deliverance do come at once from this state of mortality; yea, the good Lord increase this trouble more and more in all that believe.”
C.S. Lewis put it more succinctly: “Our greatest havings are wantings.” It will do me no good to complain about my weakness, that I cannot hold steadily onto the glimpses of glory I find when I inhabit my rock of refuge. God has so ordained this limitation, while I am in this jar of clay. Yet, let me return continually to my rock. Let me contemplate often. Let me praise continually. Let me be revived again and again.
O Lord, I confess that I do not like to live with tension, yet longing for you is the ultimate tension. Please Lord, let me embrace the tension of being required to have to come continually to my rock, and accepting this fact that I must come and go often, that I might return frequently, stay longer, and yearn to dwell eternally in my rock of habitation.
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