Is Your Foundation Solid? Part 1

A client once hired Kelly to fix up his shed. The foundation for the structure was a toilet placed under each of the four corners. The client didn’t want Kelly to build a new foundation, just to fix the building on top. Since it was just a garden shed, Kelly did the work as asked. But I can’t help but think that’s the way we approach God sometimes. 

We want Him to fix what’s troubling us, what others see, but we don’t want Him to mess with our foundation. That would take too much time and cost too much, and we’re not willing to go to the effort.

Since he’s been a contractor for 35 years, Kelly knows the importance of a solid foundation. He’s careful to build each one square and level, and use the right materials so they will hold through all kinds of weather—which is especially important here on the west coast. 

I asked Kelly what makes for a strong foundation and I learned a lot! 

“The most important thing,” he said, “is to build on virgin ground. If you don’t, none of your building efforts after that will matter, because it won’t last.” Virgin ground is dirt that hasn’t been moved in from somewhere else. “Dirt expands 25% when it’s dug and oxygen mixes with it. There’s no way to compact what you bring in enough so it won’t settle later and cause problems.”

“Secondly, you need to have wide and deep footings. These act like snowshoes to support the weight of the house without allowing it to sink into the earth. And it needs to be reinforced with rebar for strength.”

“Next, you need anchors to hold the house to the foundation. It’s not enough to just sit a house down on top without firmly connecting them together.”

And finally, you have to have the right mix of ingredients for the foundation. “Everything that goes into it has to be clean. The rocks can’t be mixed with dirt or they won’t bond to the concrete mix. And the ‘slump’ of the mixture has to be wet enough to pour without being watery, but not too dry which would leave air pockets in your foundation.”  

It’s one thing to build a garden shed on top of four toilets. It’s quite another to build your home on a cheap or faulty foundation. It’s foolish and wasteful, and can cost your life if you’re not careful. And it’s easy to do the same thing with our spiritual life. It doesn’t matter how much time and effort we put into work, physical fitness, relationships, or education if our foundation is in the toilet. Our life here on earth and our eternal destiny depends on what we base our lives on.

What does it mean spiritually to build on Virgin Ground? What are the wide and deep footings for our soul, and what reinforces them? What anchors our spiritual foundation to the rest of our life? And what clean ingredients need to go into this foundation?

Check in at Epiphany tomorrow for part two and find out what God, the Master Builder, says about building a solid foundation.

#solidfoundation #builtontherock #buildforeternity #surefoundation #onlyfoundationJesusChrist