Pushing on Rocks

Not too long ago, a friend asked me if I had heard story of a man whom God asked to push a rock. I replied that I hadn't, but that I could probably guess how it went. Here's my version of it.

A man was once asked by God to push a rock. So, he pushed on it with all of his might, but he couldn't move it. He got a branch and tried to leverage the rock, but it wouldn't budge. He kept trying and trying, but he could not move the rock. But the more he tried, the stronger he became, until one day, he actually got the rock to move. It only moved a little, but even a small amount of progress was encouraging at that point. So, he kept pushing and the rock kept budging. Little by little, the man started to move the rock. Then he got it to roll. After that, all he had to do was keep it rolling, and from then on, what had been impossible at first had become easy.

It's an encouraging story, but I got it wrong. In my friend's version, the rock never moved.

So, the man kept pushing and pushing, sweating and straining and wearing himself out, until eventually, God came back and asked the man about his progress. "I'm not making any progress!" the man despaired. "I keep pushing and pushing, but the rock just won't move! I can't do it. I'm sorry I failed you."

"Hold on now," God said. "You haven't failed me. I didn't ask you to move the rock. I asked you to push the rock. You did that. And look at how much stronger you've become because of it! That's what I was really after all along. You've done well, and I'm proud of you."

God has given all of us a bunch of rocks to push on. Some of them, we'll be able to move a little, there may be some that we can move with ease, and there may be some that we just can't move at all. But whether the rocks get moved or not, we become stronger by pushing them, and that's really why the rocks were placed in front of us in the first place. If God just wanted the rocks moved or removed, He could easily do that Himself, but if He wants us to become stronger, we have to be the ones doing the pushing. Whether your rocks are moving slowly, easily, or not at all, take courage in the knowledge that moving the rocks isn't the real goal here. The real goal is for us to become stronger, and as long as we keep pushing, we're doing that - whether the rocks actually get moved or not.