Promises of God: Stones of Remembrance in the Shaking

2 Peter 1:4

By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises (2 Peter 1:4).

John 10:27-28

My Sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and tehy shall never perish; neither shall anyone shatch them out of my hand (John 10:27-28).

Promises of God on the Journey

As we answer the call to journey with Jesus, our faith is challenged, and we must choose Him again and again, clinging to the promises of God that we have been given.  In the allegorical classic, Hinds Feet On High Places, written by Hannah Hurnard, God’s promises are represented by stones. There is a place in the story that I keep coming back to lately about holding on to those promises.

A Treacherous Journey

The main character, Much-Afraid is journeying up to the High Places with two companions that the Good Shepherd has chosen for her: Sorrow and Suffering. The journey has been treacherous but she has come so far, the Good Shepherd having promised to come whenever she calls His name.

As she has climbed, the heckling bullies from the village she left behind—Fear, Bitterness, Resentment, Pride, and Self-Pity—have come after her to discourage her, telling her lies about the Good Shepherd, hoping she’ll give up and turn back.

 Now Much-Afraid and her two companions are standing on a narrow, steep path against a mountain:

Avalanches

Suddenly, higher up on the path, they heard the sound of running feet…, then out of the ghostly mist appeared first Fear, then Bitterness, followed by Resentment, Pride, and Self-Pity. They were running as though for their lives, and as they reached the three women, they shouted, “Back! Turn back at once! The avalanches are falling ahead, and the whole mountainside is shaking as though it will fall too. Run for your lives!”

Promises of God in the Shaking

The three travelers are not sure what to do, but the Voice of the Shepherd directs them to a low cave wherein they will be able to wait out the storm. As they are crouched there in the cave to wait…

A Raging Storm

…the rains descended and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon the mountains until everything around them seemed to be shivering and quaking and falling. Flood waters rushed down the steep cliffs and a torrent poured over the rocks which projected over the cave so that the whole entrance was closed with a waterfall, but not a single drop fell inside the cave where the three sat together on the ground.

Everything that Can be Shaken

Have we not been hearing that ‘everything that can be shaken, will be shaken?’ Fear, Bitterness, Resentment, Pride, and Self-Pity are being forced to flee because of the ‘shaking’ on that mountain. When I read this part, I think about how everything around us seems to be “shivering and quaking and falling” and the flood waters are pouring over our doorways, forcing us to stop the Going for once, and turn our attention inward.

It is a time to rest for sure, but also a time to consider things; to search our hearts and to let God search our hearts; even also, to search out God’s Heart. For many, because we are so used to the Going, the Not Going feels like we are being shaken!

Great and Precious Promises of God

After they had been there for some time and the storm, far from abating, seemed to be increasing in strength, Much-Afraid silently put her hand in her bosom and drew out the leather bag which she always carried. Emptying the little heap of stones and pebbles into her lap, she looked at them. They were the memorial stones from all the alters which she had built along the way.

Stones of Remembrance

 She looked at the little pile in her lap and asked herself dully, “Shall I throw them away? Were they not all worthless promises which he gave me on the way here?” Then with icy fingers she picked up the first stone and repeated the first words that He had spoken to her beside the pool.

Habakkuk 3:19

“I will make thy feet like hinds’ feet and set thee upon thine High Places” (Hab. 3:19). She held the stone in her hand for a long time, then said slowly, “I have not received hinds’ feet, but I am on higher places than ever I imagined possible, and if I die up here, what does it matter? I will not throw it away.”

John 13:7

She put the stone back in the bag, picked up the next and repeated, “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter” (John 13:7); and she gave a little sob and said, “Half at least of that is true, and who knows whether the other half is true or not—but I will not throw it away.”

John 11:4

Picking up the third stone, she quoted, “This is not unto death, but for the glory of God” (John 11:4). “Not unto death,” she repeated, “even though he says, ‘Offer the promise as a Burnt Offering’?” But she dropped the stone back into the bag and took the fourth.

Isaiah 28:28

“Bread corn is bruised… but no one crushes it forever” (Is. 28:28). “I cannot part with that,” she said, replaced it in the bag, and took the fifth.

Jeremiah 18:6

“Cannot I do with you as the Potter? saith the Lord” (Jer. 18:6) “Yes” said she, and put it back into the bag.

Isaiah 54:11

Taking the sixth, she repeated, “O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors…” (Isa. 54:11), then could go no farther but wept bitterly. “How could I part with that?” She asked herself, and she put it in the bag with the others, and took the seventh.

John 10:27

“My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me” (John 10:27). “Shall I not throw this one away?” She asked herself. “Have I really heard his voice, or have I been deceiving myself all the time?”

 Then as she thought of his face when he gave her that promise she replaced it in the bag, saying, “I will keep it. How can I let it go?”

On like this with the remaining stones Much-Afraid continued, and when she had finished considering the last stone and the promise it held…

Job 13:15

Returning the tenth stone to the bag, after a long pause she picked up an ugly little stone lying on the floor of the cave and dropped it in beside the other ten, saying, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15).

 Tying up the bag again, she said, “Though everything in the world should tell me that they are worthless—yet I cannot part with them,” and put the bag once again in her bosom.

Holding on to the Promises of God

Unfulfilled Promises

I love this so much. Holding on to the promises of God may seem like foolishness to some. My 5-year-old sometimes says, “That makes no sense!” I understand why some might exclaim “That makes no sense!” at Much-Afraid’s decision to continue to hold onto all of those promises.

But to me, her decision to cling even more tightly to promises so long coming, and not yet fulfilled, is really beautiful. Maybe because I, too, wait for unfulfilled promises. Don’t we all wait and hope? For promises we’re counting on; for things lost to be restored to us; for all of the wrongs to be made right.

To Whom Shall we Go?

Much-Afraid clings to the promises of her Good Shepherd for the same reason that Peter and the rest of the disciples stayed with Jesus when so many walked away.

John 6:67-69

Then Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Do you also want to go away?” But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also, we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (John 6:67-69).

 Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. These words ring in my spirit when I listen in, as Much-Afraid remembers and considers each promise she’s been given by the Good Shepherd. She has not reached the High Places or been given hinds’ feet; she does not understand what the Good Shepherd is doing or why the journey has been so long and so difficult; most of the stones represent promises not yet realized.

 And yet…

The Good Shepherd Holds Life Within Himself

In all her life, Much-Afraid has never experienced the love and goodness and hope that she finds in the eyes of the Good Shepherd. When she looks into His eyes, she knows that she knows that only the Good Shepherd holds all Life within Himself, and only the Good Shepherd can offer her true Life. Life without the Good Shepherd is not really life at all.

The Words of Jesus are Spirit and Life

And this is what I know that I know too, whenever I start feeling like the road is getting too long, or the journey is too hard. I look around me and I think Lord, where else would I go? You have the words of life.

John 6:63

Jesus said to His disciples in John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life.

The Words in Red

This year I have been spending more time reading and meditating on the words Jesus spoke—the words in red. And the more I read the words of Jesus, the more this truth burrows itself down into my spirit—His words are spirit and they are LIFE. The words of Jesus are like infusions of living water: they bring life and health, clarity, wisdom, understanding, revelation, and a shifting-the-atmosphere kind of hope. I need the kind of hope that shifts my atmosphere!

 The more I read the words in red, the more I am drawn up and out beyond my own small world, into the realm of the unseen. Because Jesus could see beyond. His words were, and are, spirit, so they are not bound to this earth, and they are not limited by human reasoning, time or space as we experience and understand it.

We Are Part of a Bigger Story

To be really honest, right about now, I need to know that this earth and all it has to offer, is not the whole of things, nor the end of things. It keeps me upright, knowing that there is a place, an unseen realm that is more substantial than life on planet Earth, and that we are, in fact, part of a bigger story.

I Will Not Let Go

So I will treasure and cling to my stones of remembrance. I will not forget what He has brought me through, and I will not let go of the promises of God that He has made to me. l will take for my own the declaration that Much Afraid took from Job, and make it a promise to myself and to my Good Shepherd.

Job 13:15 

Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. Job 13:15