A faithful foundation

There is a childhood song that many of us know, it says, ‘The wise man built his house upon the rock…the foolish man built his house upon the sand…The rains came down, and the floods came up, and the house on the sand went SPLAT’. This is a fun song to sing. In our Sunday School, we would clap our hands together as hard as we could in order to stress the crash of that foolish man’s house.

As an adult, teaching these catchy words to my children, it takes on more depth and meaning. It begs the question – what am I really teaching them, and what does it truly mean to build our house on a rock? The answer is basic yet totally profound. The rock is foundation, and that foundation, the one that every Christian is called to have, is not physical a rock – it is a foundation that is made up of our faith in Jesus Christ. Understanding this it can lead us to another question, one that seems a little elementary, but isn’t at all when it comes to application – what is faith?

Hebrews 11:1 defines it as follows:

‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’

Merriam-Webster defines it as, ‘allegiance to duty or a person.’

Faith, is not the emotion it is so often mistaken for. It is not swayed by a mood or an idea. It IS determination. It IS a mentality that we take on that just as a solid foundation is – it is immovable, and unshakeable.

Psalms 55:22 instructs us to:

‘Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.’

Studying the purpose of a foundation teaches us that it serves to bear the load of a structure bringing it to equilibrium between the downward force of the building, and the upward force of the foundation.

This – is the very same purpose faith serves when we allow it to become our foundation. When we come into agreement with the word of God – it becomes the conduit that allows us to fully cast that burden, or weight on the Lord allowing Him to hold us up when the elements around us grow strong, and pressure is applied.

Without it, we are the same as a structure without a proper foundation, when the force outside becomes too strong, we too cannot bear the weight and begin to sink, or even crumble. We’ve all seen a structure or two with a bad foundation. We’ve even encountered a person or two with the same. You know the type, the ones who when crisis hits, or life gets rough they crumble, they sink into depression, they become hopeless, and throw in the towel all because their faith isn’t deep enough to allow them to withstand the distractions, stress, turmoil, and life that is pressing upon them.

Maybe that person with the faulty foundation, or the one that isn’t deep enough, is actually us. If that’s the case, what do we do?

First, we realize it is ok. Every person has to start somewhere. No one has this all together from the start, and where you are now is the perfect place to begin. Next, we have to begin to dig and build and that takes work. And this work involves prayer, reading, studying, learning about Jesus Christ.

Matthew 7:24 says,

‘Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:’

Building our house upon this rock – this foundation, requires accepting that God’s word is true, and that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. When you make up in your mind to accept that, you realize that the work He did in the Bible is still relevant and happening today, and you begin to apply those same principles to your situation now thousands of years later, and you do that by finding a Bible verse that speaks to you, you memorize it, and you proclaim it every single day. What one, you ask? There’s too many to pick from, you say? Here’s mine – use it, seek it, study it, you can apply it to nearly every situation you face.

Job 23:10,

 ‘But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.’

Once you have selected your verse of choice, it becomes your anthem for each day, the one you pray to start it out. The one you declare in the face of the Enemy of your soul when temptation swarms and the winds of life press upon you, and you declare, ‘No! On Christ the solid rock I stand,’ and that verse, and that answer to prayer becomes your first brick laid in the foundation of your faith, and the next one becomes easier to lay, and the next, and the next after that, and before you know it, you have a foundation, and you experience a storm of life and yes, it is strong, but you stand firmly upon the things that God has done, and the faith that He is built within you.

It is the faith that has grown within you that gives you grit to stand there through that storm proclaiming the truth of His word, enabling you to emerge from that storm the same way as those buildings we see that stand firm through the hurricane, or the earthquake. Everything else may lay in heaps around you, but there you are head held high immovable, unshakeable, unstoppable kept in place only by your foundation of Faith in the God that you serve. Start today – Choose Him.