Unshakable Foundations

Imagine a beach.

In the middle of the beach is a rock, the foundation of our lives that is in Christ Jesus. The beach is filled with sand, the world’s attempt at trying to be a rock.

Imagine one grain of sand next to one rock. (I’m not talking about a pebble, or a stone you can easily pick up and throw. I’m talking about one of those huge boulders you find on the beach, those ones that despite it being bigger than yourself, you think you can move. Maybe with an army of friends to help you, it might move. Yet no matter how hard you push and dig into the sand to move it, you cannot. The rock is Unshakable, you might say.) Picturing the scene?

How many grains of sand are needed to equate to the size of one rock? You can press sand into the size of a rock, but it will never have the strength of a rock. It has no substance to hold it together, and ultimately it will just end up crumbling. Think about those ‘sand bombs’ we all make at the beach. You get a bit of wet sand, a bit of dry sand, you pat it together, sculpt it into what looks like the perfect ball. But what happens when you throw it? It breaks, and it falls apart.

Jesus tells us to build our foundations upon the rock, not the sand.

Matthew 7:24-27

“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.”

As Christians, I think there is another tendency we fall into. We hear the words of God and we do choose to build our house on the rock. But where we’re going wrong is the building material. How often do we try to build up our lives through the world? How often do we choose to make our house out of sand rather than rock? Once we have built our foundations on the rock, what good is sand to us? For a while, we may think that we can have a house of sand, because our foundation is on the rock and we are protected from the tide washing it away. But what about the rain? What about the storms? One way or another, the sand will be washed and blown away. Only the rock remains. It’s all too easy to look at the mass of sand surrounding our foundation on the beach, to take the ‘easiest’ option and hope God won’t notice us using sand to build up our house. But the easiest option often isn’t the best option. The rocks are harder to find, sometimes they take a long time to get to, even if they are in sight, and sometimes they are buried deep under the sand. But how much more worth is the search for the rocks when we put them on our foundation, and they stay, they endure even the most vicious of storms.

Take a look at your ‘house’ right now. Where are you building your life out of sand? Ask God to show you and help you. He is the sovereign Architect of the house. Sand is not in His design.

There are definite parts of my house that are built with sand. Oh how its frustrates me that I guard the sand on my house, that I don’t want God to take it away. It’s comfortable and it’s familiar. There’s a storm brewing outside my house and I know it’s only a matter of time before the sand is blown away. God offers us the rocks before the storm comes, but often we are either too scared, or just have grown to love the sand so much that we don’t reach out and take them. Sometimes it’s necessary for the the storm to come, I think that’s where the ”breakdown before the breakthrough” phrase can be appropriately used. It’s not a bad thing, but God does consistently offer us the less painful option. To repair and solidify our house before the storm arrives.

Join me in evaluating your own house. Look where you’re building it out of sand. Ask God to help you trust Him enough to let go of the sand, and to take the rocks. I find myself in a frequently frustrating situation. More than anything do I want to give up all the sand in my house, truly, genuinely I don’t want it there. But why can I not give it up? My main response is prayer. To continuously ask God to help me want to give it up. To die more to my worldly desires each day, and to rise more to life in Christ. To live under the freedom I have been given. It’s a journey, in my human weakness, I am not prepared to give up all the sand of my house right now, but steadily I am striving to give up more of it. And with that surrender will come freedom.

The rocks have already been bought at a costly price for us. They are the most beautiful and strong rocks we can have. Let’s start using them, and not settling for second best, when Jesus died so that we can build our houses with first prize.