A Firm Foundation

Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.

A year after we’d bought our one-hundred-year-old house, we decided to finish the basement. We hired a company that specialized in remodeling old homes and spent the next several weeks in a construction zone. The first step was removing old Sheetrock and flooring.

As the crew moved to work on a room toward the front of our house, they realized it had originally been a small coal room but had been dug out deeper, below the original granite foundation, and turned into a storage room years later.

The foreman called me downstairs to show me what they’d found.

“Put your hand behind this paneling,” he said. “What do you feel?”

“Uhh, it feels like dirt,” I said.

“Yeah. When they dug this room out, they didn’t build the foundation any lower; they just covered the dirt with paneling.”

I was shocked. “How has it stayed in place for so long?”

“Probably because the granite foundation is so large it hasn’t moved, but we really need to build a solid base now.”

“Absolutely,” I responded. As he told me the steps they’d need to take, I felt relief and gratitude knowing it would be fixed quickly.

Like my house, we want our faith to be built on a solid foundation. But to have this, we must listen to Jesus’ teachings and follow what he says. If we don’t, we’ll be building our lives on sand, and at the first sign of trouble, our faith will waver because we won’t know the truth and wisdom Jesus offers or how to apply it to our circumstances. God wants us to stand firm and provides us with the wisdom to do so if we have the ears to listen and obey.

Kendra

Today’s Act of Gratitude

Is your faith built on a firm foundation? If not, plan how you will spend more time listening to Jesus’ teaching and putting it into practice.