At home group last week, Terry shared a spiritual insight that really stuck with me.

Our daughter recently borrowed his rock tumbler, and he carefully explained the process required to turn the rough and dusty stones she’d collected into beautiful polished stones. It’s a lengthy, messy process that involves abrasive grit, water, and long periods where the stones bang into each other repeatedly.

You start with a very coarse grit to knock off sharp edges and smooth out rough surfaces. The next step is a slightly finer abrasive. More muddy water. More tumbling. More detailed refining.

After 5 or 6 weeks, the stones look startlingly different from the rough, dull rocks that went in. They are now smooth and satiny to the touch. Colors pop. They have become almost jewel-like in their beauty.

So it is with life in the Church. THAT is why genuinely engaging is so important. Not attending, not supporting, not regularly visiting, but jumping right into the rock tumbler with all your imperfect brothers and sisters. Forgiving. Loving. Confronting. Repenting. Rejoicing. Mourning. Praying. Humbling yourself. Gradually getting refined and polished so you can accurately reflect the beauty of the Father.

Terry calls it the “rock humbler”. There are no important rocks and no insignificant rocks. We each play a crucial role, and if we endure the process with faith, we eventually come out beautiful. One rock alone can’t do it.

So come on, jump in! There’s room for you.

 

---

“You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood…” (1 Peter 2:5)

 “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17)

“From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” (Ephesians 4:16)

© 2015 Deborah Morris

Questions or Comments?