Foundations

A word about foundations.

We’re getting a new deck at our house. Several years ago, we asked a contractor friend of ours to design and build us a deck out our back door. But recently I noticed that it was in need of some repair. So that same contractor came over and looked at our deck. Turns out we have to replace that deck and its foundation structure. We hadn’t planned on that. Foundations are easy to forget about, of course. Nobody pays much attention to foundations. No friend, for example, comes over to your house and says, I’d sure like to see your foundation. No, they they notice the furniture, the pictures, the view out the back window. But everything they’re looking at is resting on something they aren’t looking at or even paying any attention to. The foundations. Life’s like that too. For me, my first foundation is the book. There are lots of books, of course, but only one book whose author is God Himself, the Holy Bible. When God decided to write his book, he didn’t begin like a lot of mere men authors do. He didn’t begin with once upon a time, not only because that’s a boring way to begin, but because, well, when God wrote the holy book, time hadn’t happened yet. So there was no time to be once upon. So he didn’t say once upon a time, he just said, in the beginning, God, when he started his book. The book from the very beginning, then, was the book of God, the book about who he is, the book about what he’s done and will do. It’s an eternal recording of God about men, the story and drama and disobedience of man toward the God who wrote the book. Read the book, and you’ll be reading about people who insisted on doing things their own way, and you’ll recognize yourself. You’ll read about a God who kept his promises, a God who sent his son to redeem us. The book is a holy narrative of the declarations of God toward men. Holy things. I mean, why else would we call it the holy Bible? And eternal things besides, things that will never go away. Heaven and earth may pass away, says the God of the book, but my word will abide forever. Words in a book are important, of course. One of my friends says words are placeholders for ideas. Words mean something. But important as they are, words are limited. The words I use to describe a sunset may, if I carefully craft them, describe the majestic beauty I see as I watch the day end in splendor. But my words about the sunset will never be a sunset. My words are mere placeholders for those ideas of a sunset. But when the God who created everything said, Let there be light, he wasn’t describing something he had seen. He spoke, and there was something to see. My words can tell you about the light. His words brought light into being. The words in the holy book are not mere words, they are not merely placeholders about life. They are the very power and plan and purpose and pursuit of God Himself, lived out by God in the flesh. The Word, says John in the first chapter, became flesh and dwelt among us. And Jesus had something to say very important about words and foundations. He said, the person who hears his words and puts them into practice is like a man who built his house on the rock. The rain came, the water rose, the wind blew, but the house stood. He didn’t say that building on the right foundation would keep the storm from coming. He said the house would stand. Our contractor saw something I hadn’t noticed when he came the other day. I’d been looking at the deck. He’d been looking at what’s holding that deck up. And it’s a good thing to pay attention when you’re building a deck. It’s even more important when you’re building a life. The book is foundational to my life. I endeavor to put his words into practice and rest the weight of my life on what he says. Whether you’re building a deck or a life, paying attention to the foundation is incredibly important.