Testament Tuesday – Having a Firm Foundation

There’s a story in Matthew chapter 7 that talks about a wise man who built his house on rock. In this passage the rain fell, floods came, and winds blew on the house. But the house stood strong because it had been built on rock. Then there was a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, floods came, and winds blew on the house. And it fell because it was built on sand.

In this story both houses get hit by storms, but only one of them falls. We get hit by storms in life, don’t we? I mean they’re a fact of life, and not a single one of us are lucky enough to be excluded from them. Stuff happens, hardships happen, struggles happen, and life gets hard. The devil tries to bring his strongest storms right to your front door. But we can be prepared for those storms if we build our house properly. The bible tells us that storms will happen, but the ability to withstand the storm is all dependent on our foundation. What is your foundation made of?

Is your life built on image? Is your life solely based on how many IG likes you get for having the most stylish things? Oooh I hope not. Is your life built on praise? You literally work your butt off just to play a role to make everyone like you? That’s exhausting. And I’m going to tell you a secret, someone will always find a problem with you. Is your life built on control and planning? You work so hard to control or plan certain aspects of your life that you just simply have NO control over? (that’s me!)

These are all foundations made of sand. And c’mon now, we know better than to build our lives on superficial things and plans we can’t control. We can’t help it! We want the good image, the praise, the sense of control. But deep down we know it’s not what we’re meant to do. We know it’s not how God wants us to live.

What if we built our life on the rock that is God’s truth for our lives? The rock that says we don’t need other people’s opinions or praise. The rock that says we don’t need to know every little detail of what may or may not happen next. Have you done something in your life even though you knew deep down it wasn’t a good idea and in the end it all came crashing down?

I have. I thought I could map out my life down to when we would get pregnant and have our babies and it all came crashing down. I bet you have your own stories too. You knew it wasn’t the right situation, but you wanted it SO bad that you went through it anyway. You started to build on the sand, then the storms of life hit and it all crumbled.

Well I have good news for the both of us. God doesn’t shame us for our mistakes. He doesn’t leave us until we figure it out. No, He guides us and uses our past failures to teach us for our next build. To urge us to build next time on the rock. There’s a big difference between building your life on the rock of what God says, and building on the sand of what you say.

You never know when the next storm will hit in your life. But every day we are given a new chance to build on something firm. Build on the firm foundation that is God. Find God’s truth for your life and build your decisions and actions around that truth. Then when the storms inevitably hit, you will be so much stronger and able to weather the storm.

No more sandy foundations build on the rock.