Alongside sandcastles, donkey rides and ice creams, rock is part of any good summer seaside holiday. These multi-coloured sticks of confectionary wonderfulness involve the careful mixing of sugar, liquid glucose and various colouring, and then after a process of twisting and turning and pulling and stretching, the final product is formed. Having kept dentists in business for many years rock is as popular now as it ever was. 

It’s not only the brightly coloured sugar that make up a stick of rock, it often features the name of the seaside town or resort as part of the rock itself. Not just lettering on the outside, the letters run right through its middle. Every bite you take from one end to the other and there it is.   

There’s a story in the Old Testament in the bible that describes how the prophet Samuel is sent by God to look for a new king. He knows that it is one of the sons of a man called Jesse. One by one Samuel is introduced to Jesse’s sons, each tall, strong and handsome and looking every inch a king. But each time God tells Samuel that they are not the one that he is searching for. Eventually after some persuasion, Jesse calls his youngest son in from tending the sheep out in the fields and brings him to Samuel. This is David, and much to Samuel’s surprise, God says that he will be king.

Samuel may have been surprised, but God explains how he works

“Man looks at the outside”, says God, “but I look at the heart”

Whatever public face is presented to the world, God knows exactly what’s going on behind it. There’s no pretence with God. Nothing is hidden. Our motivations may be a secret to everyone else, but not to God.

If we could look inside ourselves, I wonder if we would see God’s name written all the way through, just like in a stick of rock?

(August 2015)