Security - founded on WHAT?

Security does not mean “no problem”… and it’s taken me over fifty years to see that.

As a child I absolutely loved a particular song: one that spoke of security for me and naïve glee for others who chose a path that led, inevitably, to insecurity. I took great delight in exaggerating the actions. When “the rain came down” and our teacher invited us three- and four-year-olds to “reach your hands up to the sky!” I took her literally. I would stand on my chair twinkling my little fingers higher than anyone else’s. When “the floods came up” and everyone reached towards the floor, I pushed my hands flat on the carpet. I derived utter glee singing that the foolish man’s house “fell flat” (resounding CLAP). No wonder (I reasoned) if he had built his house on sand! He got what he deserved.

Unlike him, I was building my house on the rock; my house would stay firm. Or so I thought.

Moreover, when we sang that “the house on the rock stood firm,” I pictured the sun always shining on his house on the rock; I imagined it standing high above the flood waters. Never once did I think that the wise man had a moment’s insecurity.

Only now do I see that I missed the vital point of Jesus’ parable. The wise man endured terrible storms. The rain lashed down, and the floods came up for him, too. The wind whooshed and the man could not have been anything BUT dismayed.

I notice all this now – now that I see that I had inserted my own wishful thinking there. Jesus gave no such promise. He was the realistic One Who told us that the wind blew wildly and the floods came up for both builders.

We do not feel secure because nothing bad is happening. Security comes from knowing that the rock on which we’re standing will remain firm. The key is in finding the rock.

So where, exactly, is this rock on which I can stand? Today’s problem – the place where the rain is drenching me and I feel miserable – is in coping with dismay over some people who do not want the truth to be told in a situation. Where’s the rock for that? I’ve sweated all night, wondering…

This morning I found it. I suddenly realised that Jesus knew that people couldn’t bear the truth. He accepted it; anticipated it, even. That’s why He spoke in parables. That’s why He was silent in the presence of people who couldn’t hear the truth.

T S Eliot said, “Truth is not the same as fact.” Indeed.