I’ve thought a lot lately about what it means to “be someone’s ROCK.”

What it DOES NOT mean is that you have to look like this…

Being someone’s ROCK implies being a source of stability and assurance for someone’s life and future. It means being someone’s constant who can be relied upon and trusted. If you want to cross a raging river that looks impossible…you are surely going to look for rocks to jump on because you know they can get you to the other side. We may be in someones life for just a season, or a lifetime…we should all strive to be a rock for others to rely upon.

Another example of the real impact a sure rock can have on someone else is the story of Alex Honnold. He is the greatest free solo climber in the world. He relies upon rocks to scale the face of a cliff. Often all he uses are his fingers wedged in between rocks that he knows will not move. 

In order to be someone else’s rock one first needs to become their own rock. To become your own rock you must take life “by the horns” so to speak and control what you can control. You must be living each day with the future in mind and make decisions that will bring your life stability and peace.

So much of life is out of control. Outside forces and the decisions of others impact us everyday. The world today is uncertain. No one knows what the future holds.

Statistics tell us that some of us may fall victim to accident, disease, misfortune, tragedy and heartbreak. Odds say that half of all marriages end in divorce. Look at Emily the Bachelorette, did she ever imagine that she would be single again and that her husband would die in a plane crash? Or the victims of the most recent fires in Idaho and Colorado…one day your home is there and the next it has vanished under ashes. No one is immune to the effects of living in a broken world.

We are real people living in a fallen world. Once we all lived with our Father in Heaven but now we are far removed from the sanctuary that is His presence. We find ourselves here on Earth trying to figure out our path. We go through life experiencing different things…some of us born in freedom and prosperity and others into dictatorship and poverty.

Yet it doesn’t matter where you live or who you are, each person is subject to the harsh reality of life. Steve Jobs, the seemingly invincible CEO of Apple…died from cancer refusing surgery or chemotherapy. He was brilliant, yet he could not humble himself enough to give into the wonders of modern medicine to save his own life. College and pro athletes who appear to be “on top of the world” end up with nothing, bankrupt and with no future because they refused to put value on education or financial investment for the future. Often these athletes are on injury away from the unemployment line. Terrel Owens and Allen Iverson are two prime examples as of late. Life can really chew someone up and spit them out over time.

So we know life can flush us down a toilet bowl if we are not careful, but what do we do about it? Do we decide to become a rock or do we run? Everyone looks for some sort of escape from reality whether it be in video games, drugs and alcohol, pornography, gambling, partying or a plethora of other meaningless outlets our society offers. This so-called “escape” is really a black hole which will incinerate your starship of life. Most of these distractions lead to addiction and pretty soon you aren’t a rock at all but sand that can be washed away. You can’t be trusted or relied upon by anyone else because you can’t even take care of yourself.

There is a song I learned growing up in the church that says that the wise man build his house upon the rock, and the foolish man built his house upon the sand. When the rains came down and the floods came up, the house on the sand washed away but the wise men’s house stood still.

This song is so simple but carries so much application. As we go about our lives are we building them on a rock or on the sand?

So what can we do to become a rock?

The short answer is simple: we build our life around correct principles like I talked about in my previous blog post. Correct principles never change and once they are practiced as habits they will always yield peace and stability. We live each day with our future in mind. We set goals, we manage our time, we work hard, we save and invest our money, we spend less than what we make, we form a network of meaningful relationships for love and support and lastly we live according to God’s laws and we turn our lives over to him.

Christ is the rock of all rocks…and we are expected to become like him. Peter was Christ’s head disciple and right hand man. He defended the Savior when the soldiers came to take him with a sword and cut off one of their ears. Peter’s name (Petros in Greek) means rock. Christ trusted the entire church on the shoulders of Peter when he died. Can you imagine how much trust the Savior would have had to have in Peter?

The idea is that if we pattern ourselves and our lives after Christ that we too can become “rocks” in our own right just like Peter. We may not be asked to lead Christ’s church but we may be asked to lead our wives or husbands, our children and grandchildren, our friends and community in righteousness. The world may be in chaos around us whether it be war, politics, crime, economic downturn, moral corruption, disaster or personal/family tragedy and sorrow but we can be at peace if we follow Christ. He teaches us to have faith, to repent, to keep the commandments and on top of all that to be kind, patient, understanding, forgive and forget and to love unconditionally.

The world is only going to get worse and the time to face life with courage and become a ROCK has never been more urgent.I want to be someone who those closest to me can count on for emotional, spiritual, and physical support and protection. I want to be a man of character and of my word. I want to live life to the fullest and accomplish my goals. Ultimately I want a Christ centered family who not only has enough to support each other but to lift and help and bless the lives of complete strangers who are struggling.

True joy is found in being someone else’s rock. The Savior can’t be with us now but we can’t point others towards his direction. We can live after his example and become the men and women he would have us be. He is going to return to the Earth one day and we will be able to look at him and he will say…

“Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord ” (Matthew 25:23).