“Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.” (Isaiah 8:13-15). They say that pride goeth before the fall, and that fall almost always begins with an ego trip. Whether we acknowledge it or not, all of us are walking through life upon the Rock of our Redeemer. To those of us who take the time to study and learn of this Rock, it can be a sanctuary and a foundation. But if we decide that we do not need to keep our eyes fixed upon that Rock, then inevitably it will become for us a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. God's ways are not our ways. There will be unexpected crevices and ridges in the Rock. We will have to be paying close attention to make sure that we know when we must climb up to a new shelf or down to a new ledge. If we are focused only on looking back at how far we've come or ahead to how much left we have to go, or else looking around and fixating on how much farther ahead or behind we are than everyone else, then what we are not doing is keeping our eye fixed on the part of the Rock right in front of us and we will inevitably trip and fall. But if we have the humility to focus only on the Rock of our Redeemer, then we will not have to suffer any bruises to our ego because we will neither notice nor care where we are at on the path finished to others or even to our past or future selves. I hope we can all find sanctuary and not stumbling in the Rock as we walk with humility and not pride.
