Hitting Rock Bottom

Rock of Ages

Take a look around you. We are hitting rock bottom in this country. Our politics is a mess. There is moral bankruptcy all around. And then there is suffering in this world rivaling the Holocaust! Actually, we have been hitting rock bottom for a long time, haven't we? 

And maybe you have been hitting rock bottom personally also.

There's that serious diagnosis, that turmoil in a relationship, that financial reversal, that heart-shattering rejection. Or maybe it's having heard once too often those inner, harassing voices telling you "you are nothing, no one loves you, no one will ever love you." You are at the end of your trying, the end of your own resources.

Hitting rock bottom can be a good thing.

Yes, you heard that right . . . a good thing though hard! Even very hard!

Because it's at that very moment ... THIS very moment of helplessness ... that we can look down, Yes, down! And see that underneath has been the solid Rock, our Lord God Jesus Christ, all along. A solid foundation. The Cornerstone of life. Waiting for us to want Him, to depend on Him, to trust in Him. 

Can I tell you about one of my own rock bottoms? For me, it came in my "religious" life, my spiritual journey.

A while ago, after many years trying to live the Christian life (in effect trying to get God to love me more, to use me), I was exhausted, discouraged, and confused.  So in my desperation and despair, I basically said to God, "I give up! I can't do this anymore!"

It was in that very moment, sitting there in the corner of my living room in our big Lazy Boy chair,
God's love broke through. I had hit rock bottom on the Rock of Ages.

I sensed God say to my soul, "Good, that's what I was waiting for, because you need to know that I love you even if you never do anything right again!"

And you know what? That personal word began to unfold to me everywhere in the Scriptures:

I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love.
    With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.

Jeremiah 31:3 NLT

The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
Zephaniah 3:17

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
1 John 3:1

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:37-39

...he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior.
Titus 3:5-6 NLT

God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
Ephesians 2:8-10 NLT

What about you, my precious friend? Are you un-stabilized by what is going on around you or in you?

And certainly we all should if that were all that is. But it's not! Underneath, at the bottom of it all, is the Rock, the Cornerstone, that can stabilize and can realign the inner workings of your soul, even if all else is crumbling around you.

Look down and see the Stable One, the Sure One, and call out to Him right now in your despair and disappointment. He won't fail you!