Rick begins by going back to his childhood. It doesn’t take long for us to learn that all his “rocks” come from the same source—growing up with a harsh, sometimes tyrannical father who was unaffectionate and inflexible. As Rick focuses on his father and the wrongs suffered, he speaks softly:

“Never accepting me for who I am….” His father’s critical, caustic words force the first rock to fall.

“Zero affection….” No hand on the shoulder, no hugs, no pats on the back earn a fist-sized rock flung into the bag.

 “No play time….” No playful wrestling, no playing catch, no playing anything—they all warrant another weighty rock. The more Rick remembers, the more he elaborates on what he has missed.

 “No father-and-son times….” No hanging out together, no talks about manhood, no career conversations. This drives another rock downward. Rick continues pushing the emotional “replay button” buried in his memory.

“Screaming….” A sudden, fearful flashback causes Rick to wince. All the yelling and verbal attacks generate a sizeable jagged rock.

“Hurting my mother….” His father’s grating emotional and verbal abuse sends a sizeable sandstone dropping into the bag. 

 “Get out of my sight!…” His devaluing, denigrating words propel a big hefty boulder.

“Rejection….” sums up the emotional impact of all his father’s wounding. Momentum drives a very large, hard rock into Rick’s bag. It crashes against the other rocks inside, leaving some small, sharp-edged fragments. Jagged pieces are painfully wedged in Rick’s memory. Ultimately, rejection says it all.

Expanding on the visual, I tell Rick he has a bag of rocks residing in his soul. For years he has been hauling rocks of resentment, stones of hostility, and boulders of bitterness. Then I point to the bag hanging from the hook around his neck—the burlap now straining from the weight of the rocks.

"What would happen if you were to keep walking around with that bag of rocks hanging onto your hook the rest of your life?”

He immediately responds, needing no time to think, “I wouldn’t be able to run anymore.” I am surprised and glad at his answer. Instead of saying, “I would become bent over,” or “It would be difficult to walk,” Rick, the devoted athlete, expresses concern that he could no longer run.

His response articulates so well the cost of failing to get rid of cumbersome “rocks.” Think of all the scriptures that refer to running. The apostle Paul says, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.” And he asked, “You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?”