THE GOSPEL IN SONG — “LIKE A ROLLING STONE”
I’ve loved “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan since I first heard it as boy. a portrait of a soul that has fallen from certainty into confusion, from comfort into a kind of spiritual homelessness.
The melody stumbles forward like someone trying to find footing on unfamiliar ground.
And in its own poetic way, it asks a question the human heart has whispered for centuries: What happens when the props give way—when the illusions crumble, when pride dissolves, when you discover you are not as self-sufficient as you once believed?
That question, though sung on a stage in the 1960s, could have been sung beside a well in Samaria, or along the dusty road of the prodigal’s return.
The gospel tells the same story from a different angle. Jesus speaks of a heart that wanders, a soul that drifts “like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). There is a loneliness in being spiritually unanchored, a hollow feeling in rolling from one moment to the next without purpose, direction, or identity.
When Dylan’s song asks, “How does it feel?” the Scriptures quietly answer: It feels empty, unstable, thirsty—like sand slipping through the fingers.
But the gospel doesn’t stop with diagnosis; it offers the cure. The Shepherd seeks the wandering. The Father runs to the returning. Grace finds the ones who have nothing left to lean on.
The song’s refrain echoes the experience of many who once held the world in their hands—its confidence, its applause, its illusions of invincibility—only to find that all of it fades.
But the mercy of Christ often meets us in precisely those moments. When pride finally collapses, when identity finally crumbles, when all the false pillars have fallen, then the heart is ready to hear the whisper of the One who says, “Come to Me…and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
What feels like ruin becomes room—room for grace to enter, room for hope to rise, room for God to rebuild what life has broken.
Like a rolling stone, the human heart is restless until it comes to rest in Christ.
The gospel does not shame the wanderer; it welcomes them. It does not mock the one who has lost their way; it gently leads them home. What the world calls failure, Jesus often calls awakening. What the song frames as disorientation, the Scriptures frame as invitation: “Return to Me, for I have redeemed you” (Isaiah 44:22). Jesus uses emptiness to birth fullness, brokenness to build beauty, and wandering to guide us into His embrace.
And perhaps that is the quiet devotional truth within Dylan’s thunderous chorus: we are all rolling stones until grace gathers us. We all wander until the Shepherd finds us. We all fall until mercy lifts us.
Life may strip away our illusions, but Christ clothes us with His love. Life may leave us without a home, but He becomes our dwelling place forever (Psalm 90:1).
In Him, the restless soul finds its anchor, its meaning, its song.
Lord Jesus, thank You for meeting us in our wandering, our weariness, and our broken pride. When life leaves us rolling and restless, gather us in Your mercy. Anchor us in Your love, steady our steps, and give our hearts a home in You. Let every fall become a doorway to grace, and every emptiness a place where Your fullness is revealed. Amen.
BDD
