Facebook is My Pile of Rocks

In Genesis there are several situations where people go out and get some rocks and put them on top of each other.  They build little monuments — out in the middle of nowhere they pile rocks on top of each other so that they can remember what happened there.  They often named their little piles of stones.

For example, when Jacob and Laban (his wives’ father in law (yes, wives plural, they both had the same dad, he married sisters) made a covenant this happened:

Laban said, "Come now, let’s make a covenant, you and I, and let it serve as a witness between us.”So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. He said to his relatives, “Gather some stones.” So they took stones and piled them in a heap, and they ate there by the heap.  Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha, and Jacob called it Galeed.  Laban said, “This heap is a witness between you and me today.” That is why it was called Galeed.  It was also called Mizpah,because he said, “May the Lord keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other.   (Genesis 31:44-48)

When Jacob slept on a rock that he used for a pillow, he had a dream with a Stairway to Heaven (no, i’m not sharing channeling Led Zeppelin right now.  When he woke up he built a pillar over that rock and named it Bethel which means house of God or Christian University in Minnesota.  (Just wanted to see if you are paying attention — this is where Bart graduated from seminary and my son Kyle received his degree in education by the way).

There are others but one of my favorites, is when Samuel set up a stone and called it Ebenezer which meant "Thus far the Lord has helped us.”

I was thinking this morning of what our homes, churches and work places would look like if we still practiced this.   There would be piles everywhere.   We would be tripping over piles in our bedrooms where we prayed through with a spouse a difficult situation.  There would be rocks all over our churches where people were changed by God's grace.  At work we would be stumbling over the rocks that were placed there because God helped us to make a decision that furthered His purpose in our work.

Since building literal piles of stone would be a bit clunky looking, not to mention dangerous, we should probably just do so metaphorically or use some other means.  Sometimes I use Facebook and TimeHop to do this for me.   I know, it sounds nuts, but when God does something incredible I put it on Facebook — not because I want a lot of likes or shares, but because every year I want it to pop up on my time hop to remind me that at that moment in time I recognized that “Thus far, the Lord had helped me.”

Find some mental rocks today and look for some places in your heart, in your mind, or if you have a bad memory, online, so that you can celebrate the fact that God is good.

I just might create a bullet journal page for such a thing.  :-)

Have to include this song today.  Can't resist.