“I love You, O LORD, my strength.” The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. (Psalm 18:1–2)

While elsewhere the psalmist wrote that God was “the rock of our salvation” (Ps 95:1-2), here he writes more personally and particularly, and more expansively, “The LORD is my rock ….” It is one thing to include oneself in a collective faith, as in, “We the church believe ….” But it is another to write, “I believe.” In the end, we will all stand alone before God our Creator when He separates the entire flock, the sheep from the goats–based on our individual responses to Him (Matt 26:31-46).

Here David, the writer, speaks of God as being the rock on which he (David) stands. In battle, rocks can provide many advantages: protection from arrows and spears, hiding places, a way to brace oneself to make one’s footing sure—an important facet in hand-to-hand combat. A rock, in a nautical sense, provides a holding point for a boat’s anchor in a storm.

For us, God is all of this, metaphorically. He is our rock that gives us a sure footing in the struggles of life. We can brace against Him, so to speak, to keep from slipping in our battle against temptations. We can lean against Him when we are weary; when all else folds or crumbles or gives way, He remains solid. To express it philosophically, He is the immovable reference point for our life, the anchor, the foundation upon which we build.

Jesus contrasted a rock foundation for a house with a sand foundation. Many Christians are raised in believing households but once grown up are confronted with the usual struggles of faith, and give up on a God who does not seem to be real any more. Their feelings and superficial faith render their belief to be like shifting sands. They have not learned to lean on the Rock. He is immovable—how do we know this? “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). The greatest challenge of faith is precisely this: we are called upon to be assured of something that is not yet here, to be convinced of something we cannot see in any tangible way. And this is where many Christians stray. They come to rely on their senses, public opinion, humanistic philosophies—all which change with time. We must lean on God our Rock, who never changes. To do otherwise is to assign ourselves to slipping and stumbling through life in the sand and gravel. He is the only Rock that can anchor us to the foundation. Faith is trusting in Him.

Lord, my Rock, I lean against, stand upon, believe in You.