In the Cleft of the Rock

I took this video a few months ago while sitting in the chapel at the St. Vincent Carmel Hospital where I have worked for the past year.  It started storming, and while I was watching the rain pour down on the windows above me, it made me think of a sermon I had heard by Bro. Bud Culbertson a few years back and the old hymn "He Hideth My Soul".  It was such a revelation to me as well as an extremely peaceful moment.

A few years ago Bud Culbertson came to our church to hold a revival.  He preached on a little animal called a coney.  When I Google this little creature, I guess it looks something like this:

This little animal lives in mountain gorges and rocky land around Israel.  It makes its abode in the cleft of the rocks and also finds its hiding place there.  When a predator is chasing it, it can run and hide in small clefts of the rock to find protection from the one trying to harm it.  Bud correlated this with how we as Christians are in Christ.  When we are being chased by life's troubles, we can run to the Rock and find protection...always.  Just as the rocks of the hillside don't move, they're always there for that little coney; Christ is always there for us as well.

The window above me made me feel like that little coney.  The storm was raging outside, but I was safe in the cleft.  I could still see the storm, hear the storm, but I was safe.  Wow!  Isn't that how Christ is for us?  Life's troubles can bear full on us, but with Him as our Comforter, we can be safe.  Many times He doesn't necessarily make the storm go away, but what peace we can feel while we're waiting for it to pass.  It is truly amazing!

It was then that I realized that God had put me at Carmel for this past year to keep me safe and allow me to heal in preparation for whatever He has in store for me next.  I had taken two pretty serious emotional blows last year that knocked me down hard.  It was like He picked me up and, like the coney, put me in this cleft so I could heal from these wounds and prepare for life once again.  Now, He must feel I'm healed because I begin a new chapter in my life next week.  We'll see what He has in store.

I had said that this time also made me think of the song by Fanny Crosby called "He Hideth My Soul", which is where the title of this post came from.  It speaks of being in the safe cleft of The Rock of Christ.

The chorus goes:

He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock,

That shadows a dry, thirsty land;

He hideth my life in the depths of his love,  

And covers me there with his hand,

And covers me there with his hand.

I think that sums it up!  God bless you today!