Blog

by Ami Samuels

Several years ago I wrote a talk about building a firm foundation. This talk is based on 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 wind blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

If we want to have a firm foundation we need to build our lives on the rock, which is Jesus. If we want to be able to withstand the storms of life, our foundation needs to be in a daily relationship with Jesus and built on the word of God. In my own life I started to recognize a pattern in my behavior. When the storms of life came crashing down I found myself reverting to old behaviors and I would fall into old mindsets.

What I realized was that you can’t build a future with a crack in your foundation.

If you were building a new home and you went to check on the progress and found a crack in the foundation, you wouldn’t let them continue to build until the situation was completely resolved. Building a house on a cracked foundation would only result in bigger problems in the future. Over time as the house shifts, the floors will warp and the walls will crack causing more and more damage.

It is the same thing in our lives. Every one of us has experienced hurt, and some have had extremely painful pasts. You can’t build a future if you are paralyzed by your past.

It is as if you had a deep splinter and you continued to apply medicine but you never removed the splinter. It wouldn’t heal until the root cause was dealt with.

Do you have underlying issues that hover just below the surface? Do you notice that when life becomes hard or stressful you relate it to a past hurt? Do you feel like you continue to deal with the same issues over and over again? It is important that we identify the cracks in our lives so we don’t spend our whole life trapped in a painful past.

Once we have identified an issue, we need to deal with it. It may seem easier to ignore it and hope it goes away, but like a cracked foundation on a home when left unresolved, the problem festers and gets worse over time. The first step in healing is laying your pain at the feet of Jesus, giving the situation to him and asking for his healing. Seek wise counsel from a pastor, trusted friend, or a Christian counselor. Often times, asking for or granting forgiveness is necessary to move forward. This can be the most difficult step. Go to the person in love. Your goal is to move forward in a positive light, not cause more strife. I have heard it said that if we allow bitterness to take root in our lives, it is like drinking poison and expecting it to hurt the other person; the only person it hurts is you.

After identifying the cracks in our lives and addressing them head on, we continue our progress by studying the Bible and spending time in prayer. We need to build a foundation in Christ so that when the rain comes down, the streams rise, and the wind blows and beats against us, our foundation will hold firm.

What are the cracks in your foundation? Could it be past hurts, pain, anger, bitterness? Spend some time in prayer examining your life to make sure there are no cracks so that your life is built on a firm foundation.