These stones are alive!

“As you come to him, a living stone … you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house..." 1 Peter 2:4(a)

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Twelve large standing stones, hauled up from the bed of the Jordan River, stood on the east bank and cast their tall, rounded shadows on travellers and passersby. It was evident that each stone had been purposefully and laboriously erected at some point in days gone by. They were there as a memorial and a witness to some unusual happening that should not – and could not – be forgotten.

Young children, clutching the hands of their adults as they walked along the way, squinted upward at the towering rocks.

“Why are those rocks there?” they would ask. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles gladly pressed the pause button in their day and sit in the coolness of the shadows for a few sacred moments of story-telling.


“Well,” they would begin, “let us tell you what our God did for our people many years ago when He first brought us into this beautiful land we live in now…” And so the story would be passed on through the generations of the great miraculous parting of the river Jordan and all the other ways that God provided for his people.

The apostle Peter refers to Jesus followers as “living stones”, and in a sense, we are just like those stones standing by the river’s banks. God has done something remarkable in us, too, and our lives are a witness to that. He has brought to life inside of us what was previously dead. He has brought supreme joy and relief to our anguished souls, and restoration to our broken lives. He has healed our sick bodies. He has supplanted our natural nature that was enslaved to pleasing itself with a new nature that empowers us to live for Him and for others. He has filled us with a hope and faith that lives on, even through our darkest hours, because it is based on His very presence with us. His promises for the future in which all will be made new and glorious gives us strength each day. We are not among the “mass of men” who live “lives of quiet desperation” (Henry David Thoreau). We live with “faith in a world of God where all that is good is preserved.” (Dallas Willard,The Divine Conspiracy)

As living stones our individual lives, marked as they are, by redemption, hope and faith, stand as a witness to the world around us of something great that God has done. Collectively, as children of God, we form his household. My hope is that this little space on the web will a place for the family to gather and be “built up” through telling our stories, getting to know each other, sharing insights and reflections, and having thoughtful discussions. I hope this will be a place where truth and grace converge into love, and a place where there is generous hospitality towards anyone who comes asking questions.