Real Hope: Spiritual DisciplinesSample

Rocks, Pebbles or Sand

The professor stood before his students with a large empty preserve jar. He filled the jar with six or seven large rocks and asked the class if the jar was now full. They declared it full.

He then removed a few of the larger rocks and added a bag of smaller pebbles. The pebbles fell into the spaces around the remaining rocks. Returning the larger rocks to the jar, the professor asked, ‘Is the jar now full?’ The students confidently agreed it was.

From under the table, the professor produced a box of sand he then slowly emptied into the jar. Shaking the jar vigorously, the sand now filled the remaining smaller spaces. ‘Now is the jar full?’ In one confident voice, the students said, ‘Yes’.

The professor moved from the behind the desk. ‘Now I ask you to think of the jar as your life. The rocks are the essential elements of your life. Those you cannot do without. The pebbles are other things that matter but are not vital to your existence or contentment. The sand – smaller, unimportant stuff. If you put the sand in first, there will be no room for the pebbles or rocks.’

There are days I put the sand in first. How about you?

Today as you consider what your rocks, pebbles and sand may be, what size are prayer, Bible study, worship, fellowship, fasting, rest, and other spiritual disciplines in your jar?

Is it time to empty out your jar and change the order of things?

Written by DWAYNE JEFFRIES