We all want a solid rock to stand on. We want a solid rock that lasts. We want a solid rock that we can depend on when we're hit with the roughest of seas. All too often, we lean on things that seem secure, but have unstable foundations.
We often want to pretend we have a solid rock by trying to have everything under control. If everything is under my control, then I feel secure. However, in a world where I don't dictate the experiences I may face, how will I ever feel completely secure? We live in a world where it's normal to feel on top of the world and in the next instance to have the ground pulled out from beneath us. What do we have left to stand on? When it really comes down to it, do we have any control?
Our world is insecure. We try so hard to appear as if we have everything at hand, and that things will be okay. Deep down, I often wonder how many of us are left asking, "Will everything really be okay?" Searching for security, we wind up completely dependent on things that appear reliable; another person or our success, to name a few.
If we're completely dependent on another human being, we will find that they will fail us time and time again. They will never satisfy us because they were never designed to. We will end up choking them because we ask them to give that which they can never give: security. I have been in relationships where I made the other person God and it killed the relationship.
The classic statement, "Don't make someone your everything, because when they're gone, you're left with nothing" is true for so many of the things we label as secure.
When we commit our lives to our jobs or our families and these are ripped from under our feet, whom do we have left to stand on? We label insecure things as secure; we label fallible things infallible. Whilst these things are important, they make terrible gods.
We put our identity in created things, not our Creator. No wonder we're left broken and disappointed, pointing the finger at God, whilst we think we're calling the shots. We play God, and when we discover we don't have the control that he does, we tell him that he's done a bad job at being God. We claim to know more about getting security than he does.
Whilst I can vow to my husband that I will remain married to him until my dying day, that dying day will still come. If that day comes, am I no longer secure until I find someone else?
True satisfaction
The truth is that only one satisfies: Jesus Christ alone answers our world's desperate need for security. He gives me security not just here and now, but for eternity. Do you have that kind of security?
We were designed to trust in an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present God. We were designed to find our satisfaction and security in him. We were designed to know him and have him as our rock.
The reason I can feel secure is because I have absolute confidence in what Jesus did. He stepped into a world filled with insecure people who were looking for security. He claimed to be the Son of God, he died on a cross and he rose from death. He claimed to be the solid rock that the world was looking for. More to the point, he not only claimed, he conquered insecurity. There is not one insecurity that Jesus cannot provide for.
In seeking to find security, we often end up making ourselves God, and disregard the fact that Jesus laid his life down so that we could have complete, real and eternal security.
As Keith Ward wrote so beautifully, "On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand."
Sarah Young is completing her Masters in Clinical Psychology and loves spending time engaging with young people. She spends her spare time writing songs, running and going on adventures with her husband, James.
Sarah Young's previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/sarah-young.html