When I was a child, I loved going to the beach, armed with my bucket and spade, ready to build sand castles. Sometimes, if I had help, my friends and I would build small villages of them, often surrounded by a moat which we would fill with water. WE were proud of our efforts, until the tide came in and swept all our hard work away. I felt sad, knowing my castles wouldn’t even stand for a day.
In contrast, I recall another and much sturdier building project. The house I grew up in had a small lean-to bathroom which was very old, so when I was about 6 years old, my father pulled it down, and built a much bigger brick extension onto the back of our home. I loved the process of watching it go up, and, in contrast to my sand castles, it weathered the wind and rain, and remains standing to this day.
What were the differences between our bathroom extension and my sand castles? Well, I imagine there were quite a few, not least of which was the building material itself. Sand is flimsy stuff, and one kick would have brought my castles down long before the tide got to them, but not so the bathroom, which was made of brick and cement. However, another crucial difference was the foundation.
A sand castle is always built upon the sand, so its foundation is as flimsy as the structure itself, but the bathroom was built on the concrete at the back of our home, and before my father began building up, he had to dig down to give the structure a foundation. All this reminds me of something Jesus said when he was teaching his disciples in Matthew chapter 7.
In verse 24, Jesus says that the person who hears his words and puts them into practice is like a wise man who builds his house upon a 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.” (Matthew 7: 25.)
I’m sure we all wish to be wise builders. In the natural sense, none of us would ever dream of building a house on anything other than a rock solid foundation. Yet in life, we often forget this principle of building. We are told that the wise builder hears the words of Jesus, and puts them into practice. However, there are so many other words competing to be heard – so many other opinions we are told we should consider. It can often seem overwhelming.
I am an avid reader, and I love losing myself in a book, whether it’s fiction, a biography, or a Bible based teaching book, but the more I read, the more I see how widely people’s opinions vary. I can read 2 books about the same subject, yet discover both authors are coming at it from different angles. If I’m not careful, doubt and confusion can set in, and the enemy of my soul starts having a field day in my mind.
As wonderful as Christian literature is, when I want to know for sure how to build my life upon the rock, I have to go back to the Bible, and in particular to the words and teachings of Jesus. If what I’m learning in the other books lines up with God’s Word, then brilliant, but if it does not, perhaps I need to discard it, and get back to scripture.
It is so important to read our Bibles every day, so we can be sure we are not going off course, and that our foundation remains solidly planted in Jesus. If we do not, we may find ourselves in the position of the builder who foolishly chose to erect his house upon the sand. (Matthew 7: 26.) “The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Matthew 7: 27.)
When I read about the rain coming down, the streams rising, and the winds blowing, I think of the trials we all face. Are there streams of doubt and fear rising in your life? Are troubles pouring down on you like heavy relentless rain? Is the voice of the enemy blowing through your house, telling you God isn’t going to get you through this, or that he can’t be relied upon? If that’s where you are today, then it’s time to strengthen your foundations by digging down deeper into the rock.
Take your doubts and fears to Jesus. Immerse yourself in his word so that its truth shouts louder than the enemy’s lies. Be sure that your house is built on the rock foundation of truth, and not the foundation of what the world has to say, which shifts with the passing trends, just like sand. Let’s ask Jesus to make us wise builders as we labour in his kingdom.