Foundations

Right now you are being supported by something. Maybe you are riding in your car being supported by a seat on a frame with wheels. maybe you are at home or at work sitting in a chair that is resting on a floor made of wood or concrete. maybe you are standing with your own two feet planted directly on a corn field. Wherever you are, your physical body is being supported right now by…SOMETHING.

And not only that, your heart and mind and soul are all being supported also by this foundational network of beliefs that make you YOU, and define how you see the world.

Here's where it gets interesting though. We are all of us right now acutely aware of the trustworthiness of the things that are supporting our bodies. If you are in a rickety car or a rickety chair or standing on a rickety old floor, you KNOW it, and you care. And if you believed that the thing supporting you was about to crumble, you would do something about it and QUICK.

But when it comes to the foundational stuff on the inside of us, even though it dominates our ENTIRE LIVES we very often don't pay any attention to how sturdy and trusworthy it is.

But the foundational beliefs of our lives shape everything else in our lives. We are all a lot like houses in the sense that a firm foundation allows us to stand tall and strong in life, and a weak foundation can literally destroy us.

So that kind of makes you wonder... if we are so automatically concerned with having firm foundations on the outside of us, what qualifies as a firm foundation on the inside of us?

How do you test the trustworthyness of a belief or a way of life in the same sense that you would test the trustworthiness of a chair or a ladder?

A long time ago Jesus stood on the side of a mountain and spoke some of the most profound words of wisdom ever spoken. And at the end of His sermon, he said these words.

In the book of Matthew Chapter seven he said

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

I don’t know about you, but I have discovered in my life Jesus is the answer to the trustworthiness question. When I trust Jesus and live my life in a way that is true to who HE is, my life basically works, and even in the hardest of times I feel the safety and security of a firm foundation.

And I have also discovered in my life that when I just do my own thing, everything gets weird and hard and even on the good days I just spend my time worrying about the next bad day.

According to Jesus, the only firm foundation a person can ever find is Him, and His words. And I believe Him. How about you?