Rock Throwing

We were at the Lake this weekend and the kids needed an outing so we got on our tennis shoes, their mom wore flip flops, and we headed to the mountain to go climbing.  Actually they are cliffs that are cross across the highway and the lake.  We have made this trip several times and it is an adventure because you go by foot across the highway on a pedestrian walk, get the see the boats pass under you and hopefully get a wave our of at least one of the boaters. The trail begins just yards after and the kids content that they are mountain climbing, and I guess in their little eyes it is a mountain.  It is a high climb, but a very gradual one, and there is great 

Satisfaction when you reach the top.  But the one great withholding freedom is that you cannot throw rocks form the top.  Two reasons, the boats and the fall.  But William, much more so that Catherine just cannot resist...for throwing rocks is innate in boys.  He got by with it a couple of times but mom finally declared that if one more rock was thrown there would be grave consequences.  So we had to look for other treasured pick ups along the trail.  

Throwing rocks.  It reminded me of the great quote about throwing rocks from glass houses.  We all have done that, and I for one have been taught many a lesson by God to beware of that sport.  Two reasons, the people you are thowing them at the the fall that comes after by remorse, retaliation or regret.  It is so easy to be critical of someone else or the way that someone else sees things or does things.  For far to many times others are not on our own same page, and their perspective seems either outdated, warped or just not in tune with what we believe to be a right way. So we throw stones.  And one day we will reap the consequences because somethign in our little orderly state of judgment will go askew, and we will be forced to reevaluate our own perspective.  

I can speak to this issue personally as I have been the rock thrower, and I have had it come back to give me in regret. God has his ways of convicting us and helping us to realize our own inadequacies and own up to them.  He also has a way of presenting just the very thing that will get our attention if he sees us acting in discord with his very instructions.  God is all about relationships, and helping others and encouraging his children and building them up. We are all his children you know, and it occurred to me that that means we are all siblings and that sibling rivalry is about innate in us as a little boy desiring to throw rocks into water.  Rock throwing does not fit into the description of buiding someone up. And, thouth it is sometimes hard, it takes great discipline to withhold judgment. That discipline takes training, Godly training, to be able to embrace others through the love of God, and not our own windows of judgment.  When we seek Godly standards, God will use his Godly discipline to achieve his purposes.  

Skipping rocks is a sport, throwing rocks is an intentional need to see a splash.  May we choose to skip over our own intentional judgments and let God be the one who makes the splash.  

Psalm 19:14
May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Dear Lord, Please forgive me for the many times I have thrown rocks only to see the splash of hurt and feel the thrust of regret.

Thank you for the times you have called me out on it and help me to withhold my emotional judgment, discern the judgments that keep me on your track, and help me to consider the purpose of the rock I pick up, and think: Is it a skipper or a splasher?  Amen