When you feel like the foundation of your life cracks.
Last April, I was face-timing my friend, Karen in Bellingham, Washington. We ended our weekly chat a little earlier than usual because I had errands to run. Thirty minutes after we hung up from our call, she sent me an URGENT text. Her husband, John, was in an ambulance on his way to the hospital….He was having a heart attack.
He spent almost a month in a cardiac ICU that was two hours away from home. The months following his discharge have been a whirlwind of medical appointments, more hospital admissions, more scans, cardiac rehab and medication adjustments. John’s previous active lifestyle of biking, golfing, and hiking has been reduced to walking around the block or to the mailbox. Karen has adjusted her work life to be able to care for John in all the ways he needs. The storm came in fast and although the winds have slowed, they still blow unexpectedly.
But, Karen and John have built their life on Jesus. Through all of this, their faith in God is unshaken. They see God showing up through the community of people around them. And their community is WIDE because they have loved people with the love of Jesus over many years! Karen has told me of nights they prayed together, as if it might be John’s last. They speak about being unafraid of the future because their hope is in Jesus. Throughout his hospital stay, staff would CHOOSE to come into John’s room because they encountered Karen and John’s kindness, peace, joy, and gentleness. They are shining lights in their own moment of darkness. These are people who have a solid foundation.
What does your foundation look like?
If you were to examine the foundation of your life today, how would you describe what your foundation looks like?
In the last house we owned, we discovered that we had cracks in the foundation. They started small but over the years, those cracks grew longer and WIDER! They weren’t cracks that we could repair on our own. We needed a foundation specialist! We didn’t realize how much damage cracks could be to the ENTIRE foundation. The experts informed us that we had major repair work to do. That would include filling those cracks but also, adding in foundation “piers”–the only way to reinforce the stability and strength of the foundation.
Repair the foundation
If you’ve been through a season of deconstruction, you might notice there’s some cracks in your foundation. You have some repair work to do. You might have been trying to fill those cracks on your own, pursuing quick fixes, or even avoiding them while they continue to get wider. A better way to fix those cracks might be to ask Jesus, “how do I return to the ROCK for wholeness?”
Maybe you have a section in your foundation that looks really faulty. It might have come from inaccurate biblical teaching or a past experience that seems to have shaken up what used to feel like solid ground. Our understanding of scripture without the Spirit is too limited and our experiences too small to define God, the Rock. It might be time to dig that up and back fill it with Jesus’ words about who He is, who you are, and how you truly find LIFE!
Or, as you continue to seek God on a regular basis, you find yourself adding piers of reinforcement to the teachings of Jesus that you’ve already formed a life on. You’ve decided: Jesus, I’m still building my life on who you say I am and how I should live!
His words and His ways.
But, what does it look like to build our life on the teachings of Jesus? If we want His words and His ways to form our life, we have to know what Jesus says.
“In the beginning was the WORD, and the Word was WITH God and the Word WAS God.” John 1:1
Jesus is THE Word.
And His words permeate ALL of scripture.
In order to be formed by His words, we need to have a practice of reading scripture.
Not just reading it though…. Taking it in as if it’s the only thing that can fill up our souls! We might describe this more like meditation, but even that’s not quite the right word. The Hebrew word “Hagah” is typically translated as “meditate” in the Psalms. But, a more accurate meaning is the “sound of a lion roaring over its prey.” It’s a growl in anticipation of a FEAST! We want to consume scripture in a way that we simply can’t get enough of it!
Eat this book
In “Eat this book”, Eugene Peterson writes about the discipline of spiritual reading. He describes scripture as:
“Words spoken or written to us under the metaphor of eating, words to be freely taken in, tasted, chewed, savored, swallowed, and digested have a VERY DIFFERENT effect on us from those that come at us from the OUTSIDE.”
We read or hear words every day through digital content that we can easily access on our devices. Most of that content, we choose. But often, unwanted content is finding its way into our feeds, through the algorithm.
All of these words are having an impact on us. And it’s coming at us so fast, we aren’t always able to put it through a filter to ask:
Is that good?
Is it right?
Is it true?
Does it align with who I know Jesus to be and His teachings?
We must have a practice for reading scripture to counteract all the other voices that we are taking in throughout the day. Our world is LOUD! We need a practice to learn how to tune our ear to the ONE over the MANY.
Jesus tells us that He is the bread of life! We want to feast on words that will fill the hunger pains of our souls. We need time set aside to savor the very words that have been forming Jesus followers for thousands of years!
That doesn’t mean that everything we will taste in scripture will be sweet. Some of it may not sit well in our stomachs. It may be hard to digest. Much of what Jesus asks of us in the Sermon on the Mount is HARD. Hard to hear and hard to obey. But let’s choose to keep coming to the table, dining with the Holy Spirit and asking for His help.
Side by side
Can I encourage you in one other way as you choose to build your house on the rock? Laying a foundation is a BIG job. One that can’t be done alone. A job that requires laborers who will work shoulder to shoulder.
When I was 22, I was part of a team of adults who took a high school youth group on a mission trip to Mexico. One of our jobs that week was to lay a foundation for a new church building. It involved digging a massive trench, fitting it with rebar and pouring in concrete to hold the rebar in place.
Without powered construction equipment, we relied solely on the manpower of our inexperienced team. We were provided a leader who spoke broken English, who had built foundations before and would show us what to do, while working alongside us. As the group of teens rotated each day, one of the adults would then teach a teen what they had learned the day before so we could continue the work.
This is a picture to me of how we build a house: alongside a master builder and an apprentice.
A master builder is someone who has been walking the way of Jesus for some time that you can watch and imitate, ask questions of, and glean wisdom from. An apprentice is someone who needs what you have to offer and what you have learned so far on your journey following Jesus.
Community
As Jesus people, we don’t build our house alone! We choose to live out the words and ways of Jesus in community. A community that will help us fix or strengthen the foundation. A community who is committed to feasting on the words of scripture. A community who desires to live a life that looks different from the culture around them. Hearing and doing what Jesus says! Who do you identify as your community? Do you have a master builder to imitate and learn from? Who is an apprentice that is learning from you as you follow Jesus?
Take some time today to examine the foundation you have built your life on so far. Maybe you need to make a plan for fixing some broken places. Whose voice is the loudest in your life and are they affirming what God says or drawing you away from Him? Do you need to consult with a master builder? Have you begun to share what you are learning with an apprentice?
Your foundation issues aren’t permanent! May God be with you as you take the first step towards repair.