A number of years ago I added a large bedroom and bathroom onto our house. Raising three girls had shifted us to the point of either moving into a larger home or expanding. The bids that came in on building the addition were so far out of our price range it wasn't funny. So, I paid my friend, Joe, who was retired former contractor to be the brains and I would be the brawn. I had always wanted to tackle a project of this magnitude, so I was pretty pumped about the whole thing.
During the first days I learned to fall in love with my shovel. My retired friend would have nothing to do with backhoes, trenchers or other "luxury" power equipment. We did it the manly way, by hand. We dug, and dug, and dug. I thought my hands were going to fall of, not to mention my aching back. Joe kept trying to encourage me by explaining that we were preparing the foundation, the most important part of the structure, and that our hard work was going to worth it.
One day the inspector to come out and inspect our work before pouring the foundation. He looked things over and scratched his head, saying, "Why did you dig the foundation so deep? It will be stronger than it needs to be." Joe said, "We don't want this part of the house to have any problems." The inspector smiled, signed the papers, and we began to pour concrete.
The addition turned out fantastic and I learned many valuable lessons during those months of work. One of those lessons was about foundations. We put the time, effort and energy to build a solid foundation so the building would withstand anything. It was hard work, but it was worth it.
In our spiritual lives, our foundation needs to be Jesus Christ and His Word. Matthew 7:24-27 tells us to follow Jesus' words so that when the storms of life hit, we will still stand.
Take the time, effort and energy to learn God's Word, study God's Word, fall in love with God's Word. It will be the solid foundation that will never crumble. The foundation is the most important thing.
Paul
